A vast, unique dataset showing which crops are grown on 1.7 million fields in Great Britain is now available free for academic use.
The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is opening up its Land Cover Plus: Crops data for 2016 and 2017 in order to support research into sustainable agriculture and the environment.
Details of which crops were grown on every field in Great Britain during those two years, obtained from satellite-based radar imagery, are now available to download for free by academic users of the Edina Environment Digimap® service. The 2018 dataset will follow soon.
Previously there was a charge for all users of data from CEH Land Cover® Plus: Crops, which is produced by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in partnership with RSAC Ltd, a company specialising in remote sensing applications.
Oliver Robertson, Licensing Manager at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said: “This is the first and only dataset of its type to provide an accurate and complete picture of cropping for the whole of Great Britain.”
John Redhead, a Spatial Ecologist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, explained that information about crop layout and rotation from CEH Land Cover® Plus: Crops, when combined with other data such as wildlife surveys, provided a valuable insight into the links between how land is managed and the impact on pollinators and pests, for example.
He said: “This data helps us understand how agriculture impacts upon the environment and how the environment can benefit agriculture.”
The crop datasets for 2016 and 2017 are now free for members of the academic community who are subscribed to Edina. Commercial users will continue to pay a fee.
Visit https://digimap.edina.ac.uk/environment
For more information about the CEH crop maps, see https://www.ceh.ac.uk/crops2015
Disclaimer: The publication of AGI member press releases is a member service. The AGI neither approves or endorses the contents of a member’s press release, nor makes any assurance of their factual accuracy.