To See the Past and Predict the Future, Try ‘Reading’ a Landscape

When Noah Charney and his wife were house-shopping near Philadelphia, one real estate agent after another claimed to have the ideal home for them, and couldn’t wait to offer a virtual tour of its features: the renovated kitchen, the ample closet space.

But the listings never included the image that , a conservation biologist, most needed to see: the satellite view from Google Earth.

“You want to see what?” was the typical response when he suggested opening an extra browser tab so he could explore the properties in an entirely different way before deciding which ones to see in person.

The decision, he knew, wouldn’t hinge on square footage or the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, but on location, location, location. To Dr. Charney, that meant a lot more than a street address.

He had done preliminary online scouting of the larger area using satellite imagery and had identified three places with forest remnants that had escaped development. They looked like his sort of neighborhoods — the kind likely to appeal to the greatest possible diversity of birds and other wildlife.

Were any of the houses being suggested contiguous to those areas?