Revitalization index development and its application for NBS selection
Land degradation is often invisible until it’s severe — and current assessments only tell you „degraded“ or „not degraded,“ with no sense of direction or trend. The Revitalization Index (Ri) project is changing that.
Regenerati is currently developing and validating the Ri as a diagnostic and monitoring tool that tracks whether an individual plot of land or a landscape is improving, stable or declining. Built on 40+ years of satellite, climate, vegetation and soil data, the Ri will be freely available as an open decision-support system for NbS selection and validation via simple web interface.
Who will benefit from this?
- Farmers and landowners get a plot-level analysis of land status and historical trends, helping them target interventions adjusted to the local conditions, limitations, but also track results over time.
- Practitioners and municipalities gain a pre-feasibility framework for Nature-based Solutions (NbS), including site-specific vulnerability assessments, to plan restoration with greater confidence.
- Policy makers get local, evidence-based input for the National Restoration Plan and for better-targeted CAP eco-schemes and carbon farming certification — directing public funds to where degradation is high and restoration has good potential.
In addition, the Revitalization index will serve as an open reference framework for measuring whether restoration efforts are actually working — from a single field to the national scale.
Alongside the tool, we’re building a network of regenerative practitioners — farmers, landowners, municipalities, and international partners — through co-design workshops to shape the Ri and the NbS interventions it supports, and to keep improving the tool based on real-world feedback.
Agriecological test field „Golyam geren“, Pomorie, Bulgaria
Rewilding test field located about 300 m from large protected territory by EU Biodiversity and Habitats directives, and also a Ramsar site. The plot is on Via Pontica flyway and the birds are welcome to rest and eat all the fruits – several varieties of grapes, hawthorn, rosehip, blackthorn, etc. The test field is under assisted natural regeneration since august 2016, but in reality it is left untouched for 10 years before our contract.