Science at Cecil
At Cecil, we take a scientific approach to nature data.
Scientific concepts at Cecil
Describes the human and/or physical land features present at a given location.
Describes the height, mass, volume, or coverage of organic matter in vegetation.
We draw on environmental science to identify the scientific concepts [Arabatzis 2019] that best represent ecosystems, as well as the biodiversity and services they support. We use these concepts to select, document, ingest, and host datasets that can baseline and track changes to nature at the site level across the globe.
Throughout this process, we adopt core scientific principles [US National Academy of Sciences 1992] to ensure that Cecil always operates in an objective, transparent, and rigorous way.
The concept notes on this page introduce the scientific concepts we support. We use these concept notes to:
Provide an operational definition of a scientific concept that can be actioned with nature data
Determine which variables can be used to describe it
Assess the most powerful methods and technologies for quantifying it
Curate datasets to host on the Cecil platform
What is a scientific approach?
At its core, a scientific approach is one that is founded on core scientific principles [US National Academy of Sciences 1992] of objectivity, transparency, and rigour.
When it comes to nature data itself, a scientific approach is one that is underpinned by environmental science. Nature encompasses all living and non-living parts of an ecosystem. Ecosystems are profoundly complex, comprising many thousands of interacting components:
Abiotic conditions → e.g. climate, geology, topography, and hydrology.
Ecosystem structure → e.g. land cover, biomass, biodiversity, and soil carbon stocks.
Ecosystem functioning → e.g. biogeochemical cycles, fire dynamics, and crop yield.
Emergent system behaviour → e.g. lags and feedbacks, stress resistance or resilience, and dynamic equilibria.
Environmental science offers a strong basis for understanding this complexity. Among other things, environmental science has taught us that:
Ecosystems deliver an abundance of services that create a safe living space for people (e.g. CO₂ capture through photosynthesis, water filtration, and provision of food and medicines) [IPBES 2019].
Ecosystems are made of the same stuff: plants, animals, microbes, soil, water, carbon, and nutrients, as well as the conditions that limit them and the interactions that bind them.
Ecosystems follow consistent rules at large scales (e.g. latitude-based tree lines [Körner 1998]) and small scales (e.g. enzyme activities [Sinsabaugh et al. 2008]).
Local context changes how these rules behave at the site scale [Walker et al. 2019].
The insights and rules that environmental science has discovered tell us what components of ecosystems matter, in which context, and how to measure them. In other words, environmental science provides a rigorous conceptual framework for working with nature data. Applying this framework in an operational context is what we refer to as a scientific approach, and this approach sits at the heart of our work at Cecil.
Compared to a market or technology-led approach, a scientific approach to nature data:
Is rooted in environmental science, so remains relevant as new science builds on what we know today.
Ensures that science, not market pressure or high-level reporting frameworks, instructs how we interpret nature.
Positions data in service to an expansive and evolving definition of nature, rather than data defining what we think nature is.
Recognises that all measurements are estimations of nature, making a case for combining multiple data sources to deliver higher accuracy and precision.
Applies across a wide range of existing use cases, technologies, and frameworks — as well as those that don’t yet exist.