The Smart Biosphere

What is the Smart Biosphere?

• Delivering place-based environmental intelligence as a service
  • bringing together data for defined places (e.g. catchments, farms, estates, coastal zones, developments) into a single, quality-assured system
• Integrating multiple data types (e.g. water quality, biodiversity, carbon, land use, energy, flooding, visitor data) to create a complete, actionable picture
• Providing trusted, end-to-end support
  • from data integration and analysis through to public dashboards and long-term data stewardship

Why it matters

Environmental data is often fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to interpret. This makes it harder for land managers, businesses, and public bodies to make informed decisions, demonstrate impact, and build trust. There is a growing need for clear, integrated, and transparent environmental intelligence to support regulation, investment, and effective place-based management.

Our approach

The Smart Biosphere acts as a trusted, place-based integrator - bringing together existing datasets, local expertise, and advanced data science to create a single source of truth.

We combine data integration with local ‘ground truth’, and invest time in analysis to ensure data is explainable and decision-ready.

Outputs include public-facing dashboards that set out conditions, strategies, and progress over time, alongside a long-term data platform that supports ongoing monitoring and learning.  This is underpinned by our tech partners, IGI Ltd, who bring 40 years experience in advanced data management.

We are currently working on several applications including:

1. Getting river catchments to good ecological status
2. Beaches and bathing areas
3. Flooding and natural flood management
4. Marine restoration

For more information on the applications you can email us at naturalcapital@devon.gov.uk