Protocol pipeline for Retrospective image analysis for long-term demography using Google Earth imagery

Ecosystems are rapidly degrading. Widely used approaches to monitor ecosystems to manage them effectively are both expensive and time consuming. The recent proliferation of publicly available imagery from satellites, Google Earth, and citizen-science platforms holds the promise to revolutionising ecological monitoring and optimising their efficiency. However, the potential of these platforms to detect species and track their population dynamics remains under-explored. We introduce a fast, inexpensive method for retrospective image analysis combining current ground-truth data with historical RGB imagery from Google Earth to extract long-term demographic data. We apply this method to three case studies involving two major Mediterranean invasive plant taxa with contrasting growth forms.This dataset contains the step-by-step protocol to perform retrospective image analysis using Google Earth Imagery, including writen protocols, videotutorials and the data. A ReadMe is found in the folder explaining all folder's contents, whereas a WatchMe has been recorded to perform an analogous function in the Youtube playlist including all videotutorials: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_LKE-yTi9kBXfw_qDdJCQ3Sxu2fjGvDDOur pipeline opens new avenues for cost-effective, large-scale demographic monitoring by retrospectively harnessing open-access imagery. While demonstrated here with invasive plants, we discuss the broad applicability of our approach across taxa and ecosystems. The use of retrospective image analysis for long-term demography with Google Earth imagery has the potential to expedite conservation decisions, support effective restoration, and enable robust ecological forecasting in the Anthropocene.The repository contains 4 folders (Data, Code, Protocols and Videos), acompaigned by a ReadMe.txt file with further details about the contents.NOTE (September 2025): In order to preserve the identity of the authors during peer review, currently videos can only be found on the youtube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_LKE-yTi9kBXfw_qDdJCQ3Sxu2fjGvDD&si=Mb5jILoIDxcVsWFW, where the videos do not contain the initial presentation seconds where institutions are presented. After manuscript acceptance, full videos will be uploaded here and updated in Youtube.