Geography in practice: mapping habitat change with Living England

England’s broad habitats are changing. Mapping these changes accurately and reliably is vital for nature conservation and restoration, land management, and policy.

Join Natural England who will provide an overview of how the ‘Living England’ habitat mapping project harnesses the use of Earth observation data, artificial intelligence (AI) and extensive field data collection to start mapping important habitat changes across England. In recent years, the Living England project has provided valuable, openly available data on England’s broad habitat types.

While more detailed maps exist for some habitats and areas, Living England distinctively offers spatially continuous, broad habitat data - free for all to use.

The previous version of Living England offered an important baseline dataset used widely within and beyond government, supporting a range of applications, like natural capital assessments, nature recovery and land management.

During this webinar, hear the key challenges faced by the Living England project as it navigates towards national monitoring of habitat changes, including issues around managing data uncertainty, ensuring ecological validity and communicating complex AI workflows to non-specialist audiences.

The team will also demonstrate the project’s impact to help reverse the decline of nature.

About the speaker

Dr Amy Woodget a Senior Data Scientist and the Communications and Engagement Lead for the Living England project. Amy has more than 18 years’ experience in Earth observation and geospatial science, including in academia, the public and private sectors.

Amy will be joined by Living England’s Senior Data Scientists and Technical Leads - Becky Trippier, Dr Kieran McCloskey and Dr Joe Jones.

Please note: The views of our speakers do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society.

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