Bioregional Health Framework
Working draft — open for comment

The Bioregional Health Framework

A conceptual scaffold for reading the health of a bioregion as a living whole — and for building the place-specific indicators that prove it.

It's a shared structure around which communities, practitioners, institutions and investors can develop context-specific indicators that reflect the unique character, history and aspirations of a particular place.

Bioregional health emerges through the dynamic interplay of ecological, social, cultural, institutional and economic dimensions. The framework focuses on outcomes rather than prescribing practices — similar outcomes can be reached through different pathways in different contexts.

This framework is intended as a guide rather than a universal scorecard. Each bioregion defines what "health" means in its own context, and builds indicators that reflect its own ecological conditions, histories, cultures and aspirations. Health is understood as a developmental quality, not a fixed end-state — measurement serves primarily as a tool for learning, sense-making and collective stewardship.

Ideally, it's operationalised by a Bioregional Observatory↗ — a living instrument through which communities, practitioners, institutions and investors can track, question and steward the health of a place together, over time.

The Bioregional Health Framework diagram: Bioregional Health as the goal, unpacked into four themed dimensions, their factors, example assessment methods, and the resulting phenotype expressions, all held within carrying capacity and thresholds.

The framework in full — click to open at full resolution.

Living within carrying capacity

Bioregional health ultimately depends on remaining within ecological thresholds and carrying capacities. These limits aren't treated as a separate, fifth dimension — they shape and constrain all four simultaneously. Structural assets, ecosystem functions, constituent diversity and relationships all exist within the regenerative capacities of living systems. The framework is built to support stewardship of that regenerative capacity, not the optimisation of isolated variables.

The genotype code

Four interdependent dimensions

Read top to bottom, each dimension unpacks into the factors that constitute it, and each factor into the ways it can actually be assessed. Expand a dimension, then a factor, to drill all the way down.

"Are the foundational structures required to support life present, accessible and maintained?"

Structural Integrity refers to the shape, distribution and governance architecture of a bioregion's tangible and intangible infrastructure: the spatial arrangement of habitats and settlements, the connectivity of landscapes and waterways, the distribution of critical infrastructure, and the governance structures through which collective decisions are made.

It's less concerned with what exists than with how it's organised. A bioregion may hold abundant ecological or economic assets and still show low structural integrity if those assets are fragmented, centralised, poorly connected, or governed through brittle institutions. Well-connected habitats, distributed infrastructure and polycentric governance raise a bioregion's capacity to absorb disturbance, coordinate across scales, and sustain resilience over time.

Factors

Assessed via
  • Geospatial mapping (habitat corridors, fragmentation indices): overlay land-cover and habitat layers in GIS, trace corridor continuity between patches, and calculate fragmentation metrics such as patch size and edge density.
Assessed via
  • Habitat types & relative sizes: classify the distinct habitat types present and measure the area each occupies relative to the whole.
  • Edge-to-core ratio: measure the share of each habitat patch sitting in edge zones versus undisturbed core, from patch geometry in land-cover maps.
Assessed via
  • Power-concentration heatmaps: map which bodies hold formal decision rights over which resources or territories, and visualise where that authority clusters or disperses.
Assessed via
  • Spatial accessibility: measure travel time or distance from each settlement to essential infrastructure (water, energy, healthcare, etc.) to map coverage gaps.
  • Redundancy of essential infrastructure: inventory backup or alternative provision for each critical service and record how many independent pathways exist if one fails.

"What constitutes the unique fabric of this place, and how diverse are its constituent elements?"

Compositional Integrity refers to the diversity, richness and distribution of a bioregion's constituent elements — ecological and human — that give it identity and cultural-ecological richness: the variety of species, genes, habitats, communities, cultures, livelihoods and knowledge systems that make up the living character of a place. Diversity here isn't an end in itself, but a source of adaptability, creativity and resilience.

Healthy composition shows up as balance and representation across many forms of life, not just abundance. Ecological diversity provides functional redundancy and evolutionary potential; cultural and demographic diversity contributes different perspectives, capabilities and ways of responding to change. Losing compositional integrity narrows the repertoire a bioregion can draw on, leaving both ecological and social systems more exposed to shocks and long-term transformation.

Factors

Assessed via
  • Biodiversity indices: run species surveys or sampling across taxa and calculate standard diversity indices (e.g. Shannon, Simpson).
  • Keystone species: identify species with outsized ecological effect and track their population trends over time.
Assessed via
  • Ecosystem inventories: catalogue the distinct ecosystem types present and their extent, through field survey and remote sensing.
Assessed via
  • Population pyramid: collect census data on age and household composition and chart the population's age/sex distribution.
Assessed via
  • Sectoral balance: record the share of employment or income by economic sector to see how concentrated or spread livelihoods are.
  • Economic diversity indices: calculate a diversity index (e.g. Herfindahl-Hirschman) across income-generating sectors and activities.

"To what degree are the processes and flows of the bioregion operating in ways that sustain resilience and long-term viability?"

Functional Integrity refers to the degree to which ecological and social functions are operating, interlinking and reinforcing one another in ways that maintain resilience and long-term viability. It concerns whether the essential processes that sustain life keep performing: ecosystems cycling nutrients and water, soils regenerating fertility, institutions delivering foundational services, cultures transmitting knowledge, communities learning, adapting and coordinating in the face of change.

Where structural integrity provides the conditions and compositional integrity provides the elements, functional integrity is about whether those elements are actively contributing to the vitality of the whole. A structurally intact, biodiverse landscape can still show declining functional integrity if ecological processes are disrupted or social systems can't maintain essential services.

Factors

Assessed via
  • Nutrient cycle: measure soil and water nutrient flows (e.g. nitrogen and phosphorus cycling rates) to check they're being replenished, not depleted.
  • Hydrological cycle: monitor rainfall, runoff, groundwater recharge and water-table levels across the catchment.
  • Pollination: survey pollinator populations and activity, and track pollination success rates in crops and wild plants.
Assessed via
  • Foundational economies (health, care, housing, mobility, food, utilities, etc.): audit access to and reliability of each foundational service across the population, noting gaps or single points of failure.
Assessed via
  • Cultural vitality indicators (language use, story & performance, food traditions, alive craft economies): survey participation in and transmission of local languages, oral traditions, food practices and craft trades.
Assessed via
  • Knowledge exchange: track the frequency and reach of forums, apprenticeships or exchanges where knowledge moves between people and institutions.
  • Institutional learning: review whether institutions revise policy or practice in response to feedback and monitoring data over time.
Assessed via
  • Absorptive capacity (shock response, recovery time): record response times and recovery durations following past shocks or disruptions.
  • Adaptive capacity (flow of information, processing capacity, evolution): assess how quickly information reaches decision-makers and how readily practices change in response.
  • Plurality of possible futures: map the range of scenarios and strategic options actively being considered by bioregional institutions.

"What is the quality and quantity of relationships that bind together the living whole of a place and enable it to act with coherence and care?"

Relational Integrity refers to the quality and depth of relationships that connect a bioregion's constituent elements to one another and to the living whole they're part of. It covers the patterns of cooperation, care, reciprocity and shared stewardship through which people, institutions and ecological systems become mutually supportive rather than isolated or extractive. Relationships here aren't merely social — they include how communities understand, value and participate within the living systems that sustain them.

Relational integrity determines whether diversity becomes fragmentation or collaboration, and whether structures and functions can actually be coordinated. High relational integrity enables collective action, conflict resolution, knowledge sharing and adaptive governance — it's the capacity of a bioregion to care for itself, not only materially, but culturally, emotionally and politically.

Factors

Assessed via
  • Levels of trust: run trust surveys asking people how much they trust neighbours, institutions and each other.
  • Network analysis: map who is connected to whom, across organisations and individuals, to reveal density and bridges in the social network.
Assessed via
  • Intergenerational connection: survey the frequency and quality of contact between generations.
  • Neighbourhood connection: survey how often and how well neighbours know and support one another.
Assessed via
  • Perceived agency: survey how much control and voice people feel they have over decisions affecting their lives.
  • Levels of participation: record attendance and involvement rates in local decision-making processes.

The phenotype expressions

What health looks like

Bioregional health emerges when all four dimensions are mutually reinforcing and in balance. These outcomes aren't scored per dimension — they're what the whole living system produces when it's working.

Hover or tap a result to see which factors it draws on.

  • Biodiversity is expanding
  • The climate crisis is slowing
  • Equity is growing
  • Needs are being met
  • Innovation is flourishing
  • People are experiencing joy
  • Physical health is improving
  • Conflict and violence are decreasing
  • Mental well-being is improving
  • Understanding is deepening
  • Loneliness is decreasing
  • Spiritual well-being is flourishing

The distinction between Structural, Compositional and Functional Integrity is adapted from the Landbanking Group's Ecosystem Integrity Index↗, extended beyond ecological systems to the fuller scope of bioregional health. Relational Integrity draws on biocultural approaches, relational wellbeing, the Eco-Psycho-Social Wellbeing Path, theories of recognition, systems health, common health and place-based community-led regeneration. See the Other Frameworks tab for more on these.

With thanks to the many practitioners whose contributions, provocations and references shaped this framework — including Emily Harris, Vlad Afanasiev, Daniel Metcalfe, Tonya Makletzoff, Karl Burkart, Sonny Masero, Paul Pivcevic, Cyrus Mbugua, Shashi Bhatnagar, Jenny Andersson, Ben Roberts, Bill Baue, Joe Brewer, Brian Puppa, William Bernaud, Craig Johnson, J. Oriol López-Plana, Clara Schade-Poulsen, Ellie Percey, Isabel Carlisle, Laura Tyley, Renilde Becqué, Seth Shames, David Hodgson, Brian Blankinship, and many others.