Smart Biodiversity Monitoring

OUTLINE

Healthy ecosystems underpin food production, clean water, climate stability, and the overall resilience of rural and urban landscapes. Yet biodiversity across the UK continues to decline, and land managers increasingly need reliable ways to understand what species are present, how habitats are changing, and whether conservation or land-use actions are making a positive difference. Traditional biodiversity surveys rely heavily on specialist ecologists, require repeated site visits, and can be costly or inconsistent. With new policies such as Biodiversity Net Gain and Environmental Land Management Schemes driving demand for robust monitoring, the need for scalable, accurate and long-term biodiversity assessment tools has never been greater.​

The project addresses this challenge by developing the first fully automated, acoustic landscape-monitoring system capable of delivering continuous biodiversity information across large areas. Building on Agrisound’s existing insect-monitoring technology, the project’s goal is to create a low-maintenance device that can be deployed in remote locations and uses advanced audio analysis and machine-learning to identify patterns within complex soundscapes. These devices will automatically generate and transmit biodiversity metrics, which are then combined and visualised on a cloud-based platform that offers clear, actionable insights for end-users such as farmers, landowners, environmental consultants and developers.​

Across 18 months, the system will be tested at Crop Innovations’ field-research site and then in a broader range of real-world settings. Ecologists and end-users will be involved throughout the design and testing process to ensure the solution is practical, reliable and genuinely useful. By automating data collection and synthesising information into interpretable metrics, A-BioMe aims to reduce the cost and complexity of biodiversity monitoring while supporting better ecological decision making, improved land management, and more effective biodiversity policy implementation.