Bloom – a digital bridge between biodiversity and decision support

Bloom is an innovative project that uses honeybees as biosensors to collect environmental data in both urban and rural environments. Through advanced DNA analysis of pollen and honey from beehives, we can map plants species, heavy metals, and other environmental indicators. This enables the creation of measurable data to understand and monitor changes in biodiversity and environmental health, something that has so far been lacking in many plannning and decision-making processes. The project builds on a concept we have already partly developed and tested together with Humblebee through the interdisciplinary student program Hive14.

The result is a digital platform that visualizes data from beehives and translates it into practical knowledge for policymakers, researchers, and urban developers. The next step is to implement and further develop this platform so it can be integrated into the digital and industrial processes of the built environment sector.

Bloom adresses several challenges in urban development. Although biodiversity is fundamental to functioning ecosystems, there is a lack of concrete tools to measure and follow up on it in urban planning, agriculture, and forestry. By using bees as a natural data collectors, we can create a continous and cost-effective method to track changes in ecosystem composition. The technology is based on eDNA (environmental DNA), allowing us to identify which plant species the bees have interacted with, without the need of invasive field studies.

The digital Bloom platform will present information on both overview and detailed views. Decision-makers can track trends over time, identify ecological hotspots, and access exportable reports tailored to sustainability work. At the same time, there is potential to engage the public through visualizations, storytelling, and gamified features, where the local beehive becomes an entry point to ecological awareness.

The project is particulary relevant to smarter agriculture and forestry. By analyzing which plants the bees visit, we gain insights into flowering periods, crops, forest ecosystems, and pollination pressure. This information can be used to optimize land use, ecosystem services, and planning. We also see thar the tool can support compliance with the EU's Nature Restoration Law and future biodiversity reporting according to CSRD and TNFD.

Bloom is scalabe and designed to be used by municipalities, research institutions, and businesses. The project promotes increased transparency, collaboration, and digitalization in the build environment sector, while reinforcing the ecological perspective in an era of climate change and biodiversity loss. With Bloom, we create the conditions for evidence-based decisions, sustainable urban development strategies, and tangible actions to restore and preserve our shared environment.