Free tools to help farmers monitor habitat and biodiversity
© Tim Scrivener A new freely available app is helping farmers and landowners monitor biodiversity and manage habitat quality.
The app, known as e-Surveyor, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to make ecological surveying more accessible and informative.
Designed by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), the goal of the app is to make habitat monitoring simpler and more accurate, helping to support agri-environment schemes.
See also: Cereals 2025: UK start-up offers soil and nutrient software
UKCEH spatial ecologist Dr Lucy Ridding explains:
“We wanted to give land managers the tools to not just meet environmental requirements, but understand the habitats they’re managing and how they can help biodiversity thrive.”
Smart tools
The e-Surveyor app is packed with features designed to guide users through habitat assessments.
One of its standout capabilities is its AI-powered plant identification.
By simply taking a photo with a smartphone, users can receive instant suggestions for plant species present in the image.
“Plant ID can be challenging. The tool uses AI technology to suggest likely matches, and offers photo galleries to confirm the species,” says Lucy.
It also provides insights into the broader ecosystem.
Users can start to learn the relationships between plants, pollinators, and other insects within habitats.
For those using seed mixes to establish new habitats, the app can help identify which plants have successfully established, and which haven’t – giving valuable feedback on restoration efforts.
How e-Surveyor can help farmers
- Take advantage of Al to get help identifying plants
- Identify any species from your seed mixes that have not successfully grown
- Learn which habitats are associated with your plant survey
- Learn which pollinators and other insects are associated with the plants in different habitats
- Undertake structured surveys and compare observations with established checklists
- Understand successes and learn how to improve.
Structured surveys
Beyond identification, e-Surveyor allows users to conduct structured surveys, comparing their findings against established ecological checklists.
This helps determine the condition of specific habitats and identify opportunities for improvement.
With agri-environment schemes playing a growing role in sustainable farming, tools such as e-Surveyor are increasingly popular.
Analysis tool to identify environmental areas
A free web-based tool designed to help farmers identify suitable places for environmental options is also available from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH).
The e-Planner tool analyses satellite data, aerial imagery and national datasets to assess habitat features and land suitability for a range of environmental management outcomes.
Whether it’s protecting water resources, creating woodland, restoring wet grasslands or supporting wildlife, the tool makes it easier to understand what will work best – and where.
Explore heat maps
Users can explore heat maps of suitability, based on data from topography, soils, nearby habitats and other landscape features.
The maps make it simple to compare the most suitable option for a given area of land or to find the most suitable location for a given option.
It uses detailed environmental data at a resolution of 5m on all fields across Great Britain.
UKCEH senior spatial ecologist John Redhead says:
“Bringing together environmental information from digital data, how-to guides and farmers’ own local knowledge can be challenging and time consuming.
“The tool will help make informed decisions quickly and easily.
“It will assist farmers and land managers in transforming unproductive, loss-making parts of their farm into environmentally friendly uses that may attract a public subsidy.”
Farmer decisions
The e-Planner tool supports farmer decisions by presenting complex environmental data in an easy-to-interpret way, to supplement their local knowledge.
It also provides links to best-practice guidance on how to implement and manage options.
The tool assesses land suitability for several common environmental outcomes, including:
- Water resource protection
- Woodland creation
- Sown winter bird food
- Flower-rich pollinator habitats
- Wet grassland restoration.
Need a contractor?
Explore more / Transition
During the series we follow our group of 16 Transition Farmers through the challenges and opportunities as they seek to improve their farm businesses.
Transition is an independent editorial initiative supported by our UK-wide network of partners, who have made it possible to bring you this series.
Visit the Transition content hub to find out more.
