Detailed land cover map for all of Great Britain
- Nya data
Using advanced AI methods and high-resolution imagery, Scalgo has produced a detailed land cover map for all of Great Britain. The map is available for all Scalgo Live users.
The type of land cover significantly influences the amount of runoff from the terrain surface. Areas with a high percentage of artificial surfaces experience increased runoff, whereas natural surfaces result in higher infiltration and reduce runoff. Consequently, accurate land cover maps are an essential resource for flood mitigation, stormwater management, and other surface water planning.
Sign up for our webinar on the 10th of January at 12-13 (GMT) to explore the new land cover map and discover practical ways to integrate it into your projects!
A detailed landcover map is now available for England, Wales and Scotland.
The new land cover map for Great Britain is based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The underlying AI model has been under development since 2019 and has so far been used to process more than 57 trillion image pixels to map the land cover in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, France and Great Britain.
“Our AI method is very powerful because it keeps learning and getting better every time we apply it,” Jonas Tranberg, data scientist at Scalgo, says. “In Great Britain, the model performed very accurately from the start, but we could see that moorlands needed more training to be described as shallow vegetation, rather than bare land. With some additional training we could teach the model to recognise this type of habitat, which will improve the model performance overall as we continue to create more national land cover maps.”
To create a land cover map for Great Britain we trained the AI model to classify moorlands into shallow vegetation.
Powerful AI methodology
The Scalgo Land Cover map distinguishes between 11 classes in 25 cm resolution. To produce nationwide maps, we rely on high-quality aerial imagery. In Great Britain, we partner with Bluesky International, a leading aerial survey and geographic data company, to get access to the 12,5 cm imagery available via the Geospatial Commission's Aerial Photography of Great Britain (APGB) contract.
As Jonas explains, “We create the AI output by alternating between training and evaluation phases. We start with a model trained on orthophotos outside of Great Britain to identify areas where performance is insufficient. Next, we add new training data from these areas and re-train. We repeat the process until the model is sufficiently accurate, which means at least 95% accuracy on randomly sampled locations.”
The AI model creates four general land cover classes: impervious areas, bare soil (i.e., sand and gravel), shallow vegetation and dense vegetation. The AI output is then combined with auxiliary data, for example, from Open Street Map and the Ordnance Survey. This results in more land cover classes including buildings, roads and railroads.
The land cover has a high accuracy and can distinguish between various natural and artificial surfaces.
Before you dive in – A quick note about data access and fees
The land cover map for Great Britain is powered by data licensed from Bluesky. Alongside the detailed land cover map available in Scalgo Live, you’ll also gain access to the high-quality imagery available via APGB. Before diving into this exciting new data, we want to ensure you’re informed about data access and any potential fees.
Viewing land cover is free for everyone
Viewing the new land cover map is completely free for everyone, everywhere! Simply jump into Scalgo Live and start exploring.
Data fees depending on your APGB membership status
While viewing the land cover map is free, additional actions may involve data fees based on your organisation’s APGB membership status. These actions are viewing or downloading Bluesky orthophotos or downloading the land cover map. Don’t worry—it’s all very straightforward, and we’re here to guide you.
1. If your organisation is an APGB member
You have full access from day one - download and view both the land cover map and Bluesky orthophotos at no additional cost.
2. If your organisation is not an APGB member
The land cover map is always free to view, no matter your membership status!
Further, there are no additional costs if you are working on behalf of an APGB member. Then viewing and downloading both the land cover map and the APGB imagery is covered by your clients membership status.
However, if your client is not an APGB member, then there is a fee for both viewing and downloading APGB imagery and for downloading the land cover map. Downloading data has a cost based on the size of the area you download (measured in km2). For viewing data, there is a cost based on the number of map tiles viewed. See here for more details about the pricing.
Administrators grant access to paid data
Your Scalgo Live administrator will have to grant you access to data or actions that may accrue data fees. You are welcome to contact support@scalgo.com if you have any questions about this.
The first time you use any paid data, you will be asked to tell whether your client is an APGB member or not before you can continue using the data. Simply choose the status that fits your current project. You can easily switch modes at any time: Go to the “User” section in Scalgo Live and toggle the “My client is a member of APGB” setting on or off as needed.
If you have both public and commercial clients, you can switch between the data fee modes.
Start using the land cover map
To begin, you’ll find the land cover in the left side menu.
We’ve paired the land cover map with official administrative boundaries to give you detailed land cover statistics. This lets you explore levels of artificialisation in your parish, local authority, and even for individual properties across Great Britain.
We made land cover statistics for all properties across Great Britain.
Land cover is also integrated into the Watershed infobox. Click anywhere in Great Britain using the interactive watershed tool to get a detailed breakdown of the land cover within that watershed.
Land cover information is integrated into the Watershed query tool. An example of Watershed query in central Birmingham.
Land cover in your projects
To refine the Flash Flood map in Scalgo Live, use the infiltration module and assign specific runoff functions to all land cover classes.
Infiltration changes surface runoff in the Flash Flood Map. As a result, flooded areas reduce when turning on infiltration.
You can easily make edits to the land cover map! Add custom land cover classes, like green roofs or pervious parking lots, to tailor the map and analysis to your needs. Check out this getting started video for a detailed description on how to work with land cover editing and infiltration in Scalgo Live.
Use the simple land cover editing tools to make changes to the map.
Discover Scalgo Live
Contact us at info@scalgo.com with any questions or click here to request a free 30-day trial period.
