Who this is for, and what it is trying to do

This page is the guide's statement of intent. Every other page can be checked against it. If a page fails these aims, that is a fault in the page, and we would like to hear about it.

Who it is for

People who want to understand a place they care about and are wondering whether a model could help.

• Someone who farms or manages land and wants to know what a change would do to their water, soil or income.
• Someone who works for a town or an agency and needs to show residents what a proposal would do, and hear what they would do differently.
• A group of neighbours with a question about a road, a river, a development or a fire risk, and no budget.
• People who build these models for a living, who want a shared reference and a place to compare notes.

You do not need a technical background to use the guide. Specialists are welcome and the detail they need is here, one layer down on every page.

What it is trying to do

1. Help people see their own place better. Local understanding is the point. The technology is a means.
2. Answer "so you want to make a digital twin?" honestly, including when the answer is that a map, a spreadsheet or someone else's model will do.
3. Collect the tools, data and methods in one place, described evenly, with what each costs and what it takes to use.
4. Leave every reader with a next step: something to try, a checklist, a person to ask.
5. Keep nobody out. Plain words first. Technical terms explained where they appear.
6. Serve the people doing this work as a whole, across tools and vendors, as a common good.

What it is not

• It does not sell a product or favour one.
• It does not rank tools by popularity.
• It does not speak for the field. It is a reference that people in the field are invited to correct.

How it is kept

• Every entry names its sources and the date it was last checked.
• Where the guide has not checked something, it says "not yet reviewed".
• Software agents help find and draft material. A person approves everything that is shown.
• The whole guide is plain text in a public repository, free to read and reuse, and readable by AI assistants as well as people.

Holding the guide to this

If a page talks over your head, favours a vendor, states something without a source, or leaves you with nowhere to go, it has missed these aims. Tell us which page.