Space Intelligence - new habitat maps

{{DigitalResource Space Intelligence - new high resolution habitat and land cover maps of Scotland
 * Type=Blog
 * Resource=Blog - Space Intelligence - new habitat and land use maps of Scotland
 * Link=https://www.space-intelligence.com/scotland-landcover/
 * Description=New high resolution habitat and land use maps created using AI and satellite data.
 * Image=https://www.space-intelligence.com/scotland-landcover/#
 * Blog=Blog====Introduction===

In 2019 Space Intelligence Ltd partnered with NatureScot and the Scottish Wildlife Trust to form a consortium that aspired to leverage the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to big data from space, in order to support the updating of Scotland’s Natural Capital Asset Index (NCAI).

This work was a response to a challenge set by the Can Do Innovation Fund “How can we use AI for Good in the Climate Emergency”. The need for a complete and repeatable map of habitats and land cover can only be met using satellite data (big data from space) and AI to classify the data. This data will help us to take more informed decisions about land use and feed into the Natural Capital Asset Index (NCAI) used in the Scottish Government National Performance Indicator – Increase our Natural Capital. The data will also give us better information on habitat distribution and extent.

Space Intelligence used data from the Habitat Map of Scotland and worked with NatureScot habitat and GIS staff to develop training data for the Artificial Intelligence and to check the map outputs. Space Intelligence used cloud-free optical mosaics using Sentinel-2 data, a free optical satellite series funded by the European Union (EU) and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The mosaics were created independently for spring, summer and winter to help with the habitat classification. They also used radar data for the classification and to provide information on topography. The outputs are a 20m raster of Scotland, classified to EUNIS Level 2 for 2019, 2020 and a map of changes. The cloud-based technology used by Space Intelligence is developed to be highly scalable and repeatable, in order to provide annual statistics on the state of Scotland’s natural capital.

Find out more
Listen to a talk by Ed Mitchard Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Space Intelligence about the project on the NatureScot seminars page

View and download the data The habitat and land cover data is available to view on where you can also view some opportunity mapping layers.

The data will be available on Spatial Data Scotland [spatialdata.gov.scot] under an Open Government Licence

Please use the following attribution Maps and data created by Space Intelligence with input and support from NatureScot. Available under an Open Government Licence }}