rle-python - rle-python

rle-python is the backend-agnostic core for IUCN Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) analysis. It provides the RLE data model (Ecosystems, AOOGrid, EOO), the assessment business logic, and local + cloud-file (gs://, s3:// via fsspec) data access. It has no Earth Engine dependency — Earth Engine support lives in the optional rle-python-gee distribution (import rle.gee).

Check your installed version with rle --version, and list the data-access backends registered in your environment with rle backends (see CLI & backends).

Everything imports under the shared rle namespace:

from rle.core import Ecosystems, make_aoo_grid, make_eoo

eco = Ecosystems.from_file("ecosystems.geojson", ecosystem_column="ECO_NAME")
print(make_aoo_grid(eco).compute().aoo_km2)   # Area of Occupancy (km²)
print(make_eoo(eco).compute().area_km2)       # Extent of Occurrence (km²)

What’s inside¶

Installation

Install from PyPI, with optional gcs / aws / viz extras.

Quickstart

Load ecosystems and compute AOO and EOO end to end.

Ecosystems guide

Load, filter, export, and rasterize ecosystem distributions.

Assessment guide

Extent of Occurrence, Area of Occupancy grids, and intersection polygons.

CLI & backends

The rle command line tool and the plugin backend registry.

API reference

Every public class and function.

Glossary¶

Red List of Ecosystems: The IUCN global standard (RLE) for assessing the risk of ecosystem collapse, organised around five criteria (A–E) and a set of threat categories. Often abbreviated RLE.
Ecosystem: A distribution dataset for one or more ecosystem types, loaded through the Ecosystems class from vector files, GeoParquet (local or cloud), in-memory GeoDataFrames, or Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs.
EOO: Extent of Occurrence — the area of the convex hull enclosing all occurrences of an ecosystem, reported in km². Feeds RLE Criterion B1.
AOO: Area of Occupancy — the number of occupied cells on a standard 10×10 km grid (each cell covers 100 km²). Feeds RLE Criterion B2.
Functional Group: A level of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (e.g. T1.1) that an ecosystem belongs to. Ecosystem codes such as T1.1.1 extend the functional group code.
Backend: A data-access implementation (e.g. local vector, GeoParquet, COG) advertised through the rle.backends entry-point group and discoverable via the registry.