Why this exists
Landscape-scale ecology work brings together mapping, satellite, hydrology, habitats, collaboration, revenue modelling, and the partnerships that span multiple ownerships and multiple decades. Ecology App combines all of those into one platform, so the practitioners doing the work can spend their billable time on field judgement, scheme delivery, and the partnerships themselves — instead of on assembly.
The data is public, the engineering is mostly done, and the methodology is yours.
What the platform does
The platform combines multi-scale mapping, the Landsat archive back to 1984, current Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 satellite EO, 2D flood modelling, catchment-scale habitat connectivity, UKHab baselines, and ecosystem-services revenue modelling across BNG, Nutrient Neutrality, carbon, SFI, Countryside Stewardship, and EWCO. Hosting is in the EU, data governance is documented to UK GDPR Article 14 standard, every data layer carries its source and licence, retention horizons are enforced at the data layer, and the architecture is designed to outlive any individual deployment.
The approach
We treat landscape-scale ecology as systems engineering. The same physics that governs flow in a power plant governs flow on a hillside. The same modelling discipline that produces a digital twin of a turbine can produce a digital twin of a catchment. The same workflow tooling that coordinates engineering programmes can coordinate landscape stewardship across consultants, contractors, neighbours, regulators, and funders.
Ecology App is what happens when the platform itself is the quality management system: audit log on every action, source attribution on every layer, retention horizons enforced at the data layer. The QMS substrate is a property of how the platform is built.
Founder
Ecology App was founded by Ben Todd. Ben holds an MEng and a PhD from the University of Cambridge in computational thermodynamic modelling, originally applied to advanced power generation for organisations including NASA and Rolls-Royce. He went on to co-found Arcola Energy, a clean-energy company specialising in hydrogen and hybrid powertrains, which was acquired by Ballard Power Systems in 2021. He is a Director of Restore (Restored Land Limited), a nature restoration delivery partner working across the UK. He came into landscape-scale ecology as an operating land steward, building the early versions of these tools to solve real problems on real ground. Ecology App is the result of putting those tools into a platform.
Contact
For partnership enquiries, scheme integration, or anything that doesn't fit a form: use the contact link in the footer.