Locations & Metrics
These endpoints let you read the supply-chain map you've built through ingestion: the locations themselves and the geospatial metrics computed for each one.
▶What is a location?
A location is a real-world place in your supply chain that the system tracks and analyses. Every location has a geometry (a point or a polygon) and belongs to one of three types:
| Type | What it is |
|---|---|
| Facility | A processing or aggregation site — a mill, plant, warehouse, or similar fixed point in the chain. |
| Plot | An individual production area — typically a farm or field polygon where a commodity is grown. |
| Shed (supply shed) | A sourcing area — the region a facility draws its supply from, often containing many plots. |
Locations are created by Ingestion: once an uploaded asset (a row in your file) is geocoded, normalised, and matched, it becomes a queryable location. From there you can list locations, filter them, retrieve a single location by id, and request them in JSON, GeoJSON, or streaming formats.
A location is where; a metric is what we found there.
▶What is a metric?
A metric is the result of geospatial analysis run against a location's geometry — the environmental and compliance signals Epoch computes from satellite imagery and reference data. Metrics are what turn a plain point or polygon into actionable supply-chain intelligence.
The metric families are:
| Metric | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Deforestation | Forest loss within the geometry, aligned to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) — including non-compliant area, alerts, and confidence. |
| Biomass Emissions | Carbon emissions associated with land-cover change at the location. |
| Biodiversity | The biodiversity value and sensitivity of the area. |
| Water Stress | Water-scarcity risk for the location. |
Key things to know about metrics:
- They are computed per location, and are available at the plot, shed, and facility levels. Shed and facility values are aggregations rolled up from their constituent plots.
- They are opt-in at ingestion — you choose which metrics to run when you upload (see Ingestion and Metric Methodology).
- They have history — re-running analysis produces new rows over time, so each metric endpoint exposes both a "latest" view and a
/historyview.
For the full methodology behind each metric — how values are derived, units, and field-by-field definitions — see Metric Methodology and Deforestation Methodology.