Morton, R.D.; Marston, C.G.; O’Neil, A.W.; Rowland, C.S.

Land Cover Map 2020 (1km summary rasters, GB and N. Ireland)

https://doi.org/10.5285/d6f8c045-521b-476e-b0d6-b3b97715c138 Cite this dataset

This 1 km summary pixel data set represents the land surface of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, classified using two classification schemas: target and aggregate classes.

The target class schema comprise 21 UKCEH land cover classes based upon Biodiversity Action Plan broad habitats. The aggregate class schema comprises 10 aggregate classes that are groupings of the 21 target classes. The aggregate classes group some of the more specialised target classes into more general classes. For example, the five coastal classes in the target class are grouped into a single aggregate class.

The 1km percentage products describe percentage cover for each of the 21 land cover classes for 1km x 1km pixels. These contain one band per habitat class, producing 21 images for the target class product and 10 images for the aggregate class product.

The 1km dominant coverage products are based on the 1km percentage products, and describe the land cover class with the highest percentage cover for each 1km pixel.

A full description of these and all UKCEH LCM2020 products are available from the LCM2020 product documentation which accompanies the data.

Publication date: 2022-10-28

Format

TIFF

Spatial information

Study area
Spatial representation type: Raster
Spatial reference systems: OSGB 1936 / British National Grid
Irish Grid

Temporal information

Temporal extent: 2020-01-01 to 2020-12-31

Provenance & quality

UKCEH’s automated land cover algorithms classify 10 m pixels across the whole of UK. A Random Forest classifier used these to classify four composite images representing per season median surface reflectance. Seasonal images were integrated with context layers (e.g., height, aspect, slope, coastal proximity, urban proximity and so forth) to reduce confusion among classes with similar spectra.

Land cover was validated by organising the 10 m pixel classification into a land parcel framework (the LCM2020 classified land parcels product). The classified land parcels were compared to known land cover producing a confusion matrix to determine overall and per class accuracy. Details are available from the product documentation.

The 1 km percentage and dominant products are created by calculating the percentage cover for each land cover classes for every 1km x 1km pixel, then reporting the dominant land cover class with the highest percentage cover for each 1km pixel.