UK: The first detailed digital map of tree canopy cover across England and Wales has been completed by aerial mapping company Bluesky International Ltd. The tree map includes three individual map layers, detailing more than 280 million trees with a canopy cover of about 20,000 square kilometres – close to 13.5 percent of the country’s entire land cover, the Leicestershire, U.K.-based firm said. Work is also underway to create coverage for Scotland.
“However, what is more significant than the overall figure is the level of detail we are able to provide to those organisations and individuals who manage and protect this valuable resource,” said James Eddy, Bluesky technical director of Bluesky. “By providing crown polygons and centre points together with height attributes we are able to provide real intelligence for asset management, maintenance and risk assessment applications.”
Applications of the tree map include subsidence risk assessment by insurance companies, propagation modeling for telecommunication infrastructure planning, network resilience assessment for utility companies, and carbon reduction planning for environmental mitigation projects.
Source: Spar Point Group
