Rural · Scotland
Overexposed to sunlight
Many Scottish rivers have lost their riparian woodlands, driving water temperatures up and threatening cold-water species.
≈2°Cpeak temperature drop from woodland within a 25 m buffer
Letting stakeholders co-design and reflect on restoration scenarios.
Restoration decisions are too often made without a shared picture of how light shapes a waterway. re•flect integrates geographic and ecological models with real-time visual feedback to simulate how planning decisions shape the landscape and its consequences.
Rural · Scotland
Many Scottish rivers have lost their riparian woodlands, driving water temperatures up and threatening cold-water species.
Urban · Zurich
Dense development has driven waterways underground, severing habitats and disrupting ecological connectivity.
re•flect turns models into a living map. It couples geographic and ecological data with real-time visual feedback, so non-experts can explore how a decision ripples across the landscape — empowering stakeholders to participate meaningfully in ecosystem restoration.
First conceived as AI-generated imagery, re•flect grew into a fully interactive 3D tool built on a game engine — so stakeholders explore scenarios live, rather than viewing fixed pictures.
By modelling vegetation and daylight regimes in three dimensions, re•flect reveals where shade delivers the greatest ecological return — turning "plant more trees" into a precise, place-based strategy.
Develop realistic future scenarios for the fundamental changes in daylight availability that result from river restoration.
Test the effectiveness that visualisations of these scenarios have on decision-makers' and stakeholders' support of river restoration.
Develop an online visualisation tool to facilitate decision-making about daylight management in river restoration.
Completed through literature review, spatial analysis and socio-political assessment in rural Scotland and the City of Zurich — identifying the key opportunities and constraints for stream daylighting.
Completed: vegetation-classification review, field assessment, spatial analysis and daylight modelling define a set of structurally distinct riparian habitat types that directly inform the visual restoration scenarios.
Generative-AI tools were tested for scenario imagery; guided by WP1's user needs — longitudinal navigation and technical indicators — the tool shifted from 2D AI images to interactive 3D landscape visualisation (Unreal Engine), now being refined for stakeholder testing.
✓ Completed · ◐ In progress · ○ Upcoming
If you've faced challenges in past river restoration projects, we'd love to hear about them in a 1–1.5 hour interview that shapes how the tool works.
Join an interview →Strategic advisors engage with us regularly, gain early access to the visualisation tool, and are recognised in our publications.
Become an advisor →Empowering stakeholders to participate meaningfully in ecosystem restoration — one daylit stream at a time.
The live demo is limited to invited participants. Enter the code you received to launch it.