Nuno Garcia

It started with a simple question: where are the species?

A biology degree at Coimbra, summers with the civil-protection authority in Castelo Branco, and a growing suspicion that the interesting problems were spatial.

A protected area gets its first open atlas.

For the MontObEO project and my MSc thesis I compiled every available record for the Montesinho/Nogueira SAC, modelled the main taxonomic groups from satellite data in Google Earth Engine, and built an R Shiny WebGIS that ICNF, municipalities and local actors still use.

1,312species mapped in the WebGIS

Twenty years of habitat change, read from satellites.

As lead author, I turned satellite time-series into yearly niche models and asked whether species richness had been rising or falling since 2001. It had — in different directions in different parts of the park, and differently for each group.

10,190species records behind the models

Then the map became Europe.

At VU Amsterdam I worked on nested species distribution models for more than ten thousand species and CLUMondo land-use scenarios at one kilometre, feeding biodiversity forecasts for the NaturaConnect consortium and the Swiss Re Foundation. Along the way, a Google Earth Engine app made a One Earth finding explorable by anyone.

10,000+species in the modelling framework

Ground truth: a forestry company, a crew, a work order.

Back in Portugal, the question changed from what will happen to what do we do tomorrow morning. Manual mapping became GIS workflows, spreadsheets became dashboards, and the work-order process got a template, an approval flow and a live view.

~40%less manual mapping time

Now: models, decisions, and the people who make them.

I evaluate AI-generated environmental-management content for Labelbox/Alignerr, finished a business-management postgraduate at ISCTE, and take on problems where geospatial data has to become a decision. If you have one of those, let’s talk.