Historical Wildscape Vegetation Atlas of England and Wales

Wildscape Atlas maps semi-natural landscapes like mountain, moorland, heath, and fen, identified as closest to nature in Britain. The atlas is based on separate vegetation surveys completed by 1969 in England and 1974 in Wales. It was a projected spin-off from Professor Alice Coleman's Second Land Utilisation Survey of Britain, jointly edited with Chief Vegetation Surveyor Geoff Sinclair.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial distribution of 'Wildscape' areas colored yellow on original field maps.
• Study changes in vegetation cover for specific semi-natural landscape types like bog, fen, or heath.
• Compare historical 'Wildscape' boundaries from 1969-1974 with contemporary conservation area maps.
• Train models to identify semi-natural landscapes from georeferenced scan data.

Strengths

• Data is scanned and georeferenced, enabling modern GIS analysis.
• Covers two nations (England and Wales) with separate survey completion dates.

Limitations

• Data is historical, with surveys from 1969-1974, limiting contemporary relevance.
• Original column names and sample data are unavailable, hindering immediate analysis.
• The atlas was a 'projected' product, so its final published state is unclear.

Provenance

Source

Second Land Utilisation Survey of Britain, jointly edited by Prof. Alice Coleman and Geoff Sinclair.

Collection Method

Volunteer surveyors colored areas of 'Wildscape' on field maps; a separate vegetation cover survey was completed.

Time Range

1969-1974

Freshness

null

Geography

England and Wales