Indicators
Indicators synthesize multiple data sources into structured measures of how areas function and how conditions vary across landscapes. They are what move the Atlas from documentation to analysis, letting users compare areas, spot patterns, and track change over time.
What Indicators Do
An indicator condenses complex information into something you can compare. In the Atlas they summarize detailed data into structured measures, enable comparison across areas and governance systems, reveal spatial patterns across the basin, and support monitoring over time. The point is less any individual dataset than how systems behave at scale.
Indicator Types
Indicators are organized into four categories.
Stewardship
Measures of governance and management effectiveness derived from assessments.
Resilience
Indicators of ecosystem integrity and the capacity to maintain function over time.
Degradation
Measures of ecosystem decline, including deforestation, fragmentation, or loss of function.
Pressure
Indicators of external drivers such as infrastructure, extraction, or environmental stress.
Each category captures a different dimension of how an area functions and what is acting on it. Full methodologies are documented under Indicators.
How Indicators are Built
Indicators are produced by combining three kinds of input:
- Assessment data — structured information on governance and stewardship
- Spatial datasets — land cover, infrastructure, environmental variables
- Derived layers — processed datasets such as buffers, indices, or classifications
These are integrated using documented methods, so that outputs are consistent and reproducible from one release to the next.
Linking Scales
The same indicator can be read at three scales: at area level, summarizing conditions within a specific area; at landscape level, showing patterns across regions or ecosystems; and at basin level, comparing systems across the Amazon. This is what lets users move between local detail and regional pattern without switching tools.
From Data to Comparison
Comparison is the main payoff. Indicators let users weigh areas with different governance types against each other, assess relative conditions across regions, identify priority areas or emerging risks, and track change over time — which matters particularly in the Amazon, where governance systems and ecological conditions differ so much from place to place.
Transparency and Reproducibility
Indicators are only useful if their derivation is visible, so the Atlas documents methods and applies them consistently, keeps inputs traceable to source datasets, and produces outputs that can be reproduced across releases. That is what allows them to be used in analysis, reporting, and decision-making with confidence.
Limits
Indicators simplify complex systems and should be read with that in mind. They may not capture local context, their results depend on the availability and quality of source data, and different indicators carry different assumptions and methods. They are best interpreted alongside metadata, assessments, and contextual information rather than on their own.