Knowledge domain map

The map of what we need to know. Its job is to turn “learn about fincas” into a finite, addressable list of domains that can each be researched, measured and completed.

How this map is organised, and why

There are three plausible ways to carve up this knowledge, and each is right for a different purpose:

We organise the knowledge base by resource flow, and index it by asset. Flows are conserved, measurable and mutually exclusive — which makes them a sound filing system and a natural fit for the evidence protocol. Assets are how clients experience the problem, so they get a cross-reference index rather than their own tree.

The map has four layers:

  L0  CONTEXT      the ground truth of place — climate, water, energy, land, rules, market
        │           (constrains everything below; mostly researched once, refreshed periodically)
        ▼
  L1  FLOWS        the measurable resource domains — water, energy, heat, land, materials,
        │           waste, risk  (the primary filing structure)
        ▼
  L2  ASSETS       the systems people own and complain about — pool, irrigation, heating,
        │           cooling, DHW, water supply, wastewater, electrics, envelope, monitoring
        ▼           (an index into L1, not a separate body of knowledge)
  L3  PRACTICE     cross-cutting craft — measurement, economics, behaviour, procurement

L0 — Context: the ground truth of place

Researched once to a good standard, then refreshed on a schedule. Everything in L1 depends on these being right, so errors here propagate.

C5 and C6 are the two most commonly underestimated. A technically excellent solution that cannot be permitted or cannot be installed by anyone on the island is not a solution.

L1 — Flows: the measurable resource domains

The primary structure. Each of these becomes a domain brief under domains/.

W — Water

The organising artefact for this domain is a site water balance: everything in, everything out, everything stored, reconciled. Most water problems become obvious once the balance fails to close.

E — Energy

The organising artefact is a site energy balance, disaggregated by end use.

H — Heat & comfort

L — Land & biomass

M — Materials & building

R — Risk & resilience

R is the domain that distinguishes resilience from sustainability, and the one most likely to be neglected because nothing is currently going wrong.

L2 — Assets: the index clients actually use

Each asset is a view across the flow domains. This table is the translation layer between how a client describes the problem and where the knowledge lives.

L3 — Practice: cross-cutting craft

Not about any one flow; needed for all of them.

P1 is the enabling domain for everything else and should be among the first researched — we cannot run the evidence protocol without it.

Prioritisation

With around forty sub-domains, the sequencing question matters more than the list. Each candidate is scored 1–5 on four factors:

Score = sum. The point of scoring is not precision; it is to make the reasoning explicit and revisable.

Wave 0 comes first. Before the domain waves below, ecosystem and actor mapping surveys who is already engaged in this field — it makes everything below cheaper, and it is the origin of the watchlist. Site Zero instrumentation runs in parallel with it, starting immediately.

Provisional Wave 1 — to be confirmed once the scoring is done deliberately:

1. P1 Measurement & instrumentation — unlocks every other domain.
2. A1 Pool (W7 + E4) — highest local salience, large and visible losses, easy to meter, and we own one.
3. W1–W4 Water sources, storage, quality, losses — the island’s defining constraint; leaks are frequently the single largest waste on a site.
4. C1, C2, C5 Climate, water resources, regulation — context that everything else rests on, and cheap to research relative to its downstream value.
5. E4 Energy demand by end use — disaggregation before any generation decision.

Deliberately not first: envelope and building fabric (M, H1) — high impact but slow, expensive and hard to measure quickly; and E1 generation — because sizing a solar array before disaggregating demand is exactly the mistake we are trying to help people avoid.

Maintaining this map

The map itself is a living artefact. When research reveals that a domain is really two domains, or that a boundary is in the wrong place, change the map and note why. A map that never changes during the first year of research is a map nobody used.