Saltmarsh Habitat Map Derived from Airborne CASI and LIDAR Data

A polygon shapefile showing saltmarsh habitat classes across multiple sites and years. The map is derived from CASI multispectral and LIDAR elevation data, classified using ground data and supervised methods with quantitative accuracy assessment. © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2020.

Use Cases

• Monitor coastal wetland changes based on multispectral and elevation data.
• Validate remote sensing classification models based on ground-truth data.
• Assess habitat distribution and conservation status based on predefined habitat classes.

Strengths

• Derived from multiple data sources: CASI multispectral, LIDAR elevation, and ground data.
• Includes a quantitative accuracy assessment via a confusion matrix using withheld ground data.
• Final improvements were made using aerial photography captured simultaneously with the CASI data.

Limitations

• Ground data collection may not coincide temporally with airborne data capture, leading to possible variations.
• Spatial coverage of ground data may be incomplete, limiting classification of unseen habitat classes.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Environment Agency

Collection Method

Supervised classification using ground data to train a model on CASI and LIDAR inputs.

Time Range

Multiple years (specific range unknown)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-24 13:13:59.676005; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Multiple sites across the UK (likely)