N. J. Brown

UK Land Cover Map Production Through the Generalisation of OS MasterMap

Abstract Earth Observation (EO) data is seen as a major source of information to characterise the Earths surface, but is conventionally analysed using pixel-based approaches that do not incorporate the concept of landscape features or real-world objects. The UK land cover maps to date have been developed in an attempt to exploit landscape features to improve the quality and accuracy of their derived products. For Land Cover Map 2007 (LCM2007) landscape features will be derived from a generalised version of OS MasterMap to capture the required real-world objects. This paper describes the generalisation process that aligns the scale of the landscape features with the information content of high spatial resolution EO data as the first step in the production of LCM2007.

A CORINE map of Great Britain by automated means. Techniques for automatic generalization of the Land Cover Map of Great Britain.

The European Commission (EC) programme ‘Co–ordination of Information on the Environment’ (CORINE) includes a project to map the land cover of member states. The CORINE map is essentially one which combines land cover and land use, giving 44 separate classes, in vector, displayed at a scale of 1:100000 with a minimum mappable unit of 25 ha. The Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE) has compiled a digital land cover map of Great Britain (LCMGB) from classification of Landsat–TM data, resampled to a 25 m raster, with a minimum mappable unit of 0.125 ha and 25 cover types. This paper describes a pilot study which demonstrates the successful spatial generalisation with contextual interpretation to convert the LCMGB to CORINE specifications using semi–automated techniques within a GIS environment.