Res Communis

Space data to revolutionise environmental management in Wales

by P.J. Blount with the blog faculty

Source – UK Space Agency:

Space data to revolutionise environmental management in Wales

This week the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) announced a new project which will use Earth Observation data to classify all of Wales’ wildlife habitats, from grassland and woodland to coastal heath, upland bogs and moors. In the past this painstaking exercise has been carried out by teams of biologists on foot but the use of satellites will revolutionise this process, delivering improved information at a fraction of the time and cost of using old methods.

The UK Space Agency together with CCW supported early, underpinning research work. The successful conclusion of this work has meant that CCW can now operationally and routinely use satellite data to monitor their environment. This pioneering approach has attracted much attention and is being considered for implementation at European-wide level.