Anglian Coastal Habitat Map 2021

This habitat map is derived from true colour ortho-rectified photography (25cm but resampled to 1m resolution for the segmentation process) captured for the Anglian Coastal Monitoring Programme and flown over a period of four months between 1st May 2021 and 8th September 2021. LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) elevation data (collected at the same time as the imagery), and other GIS products have been utilised to produce the line work.

The Coastal Habitat Classes have come from the Integrated Habitat System (IHS) version 2.001 a hierarchal system set about by the Somerset Environmental Record Centre. This system integrates UK Priority habitats and Annex 1 classes. Habitats covered include, saltmarsh, seagrass, sand dune, vegetated shingle, blue mussel beds as well as the priority habitats which have remained in this phase of mapping.

In the absence of ground truthing data collected specifically for this habitat classification, we have called on highly accurate datasets which were built from ground truth data themselves to act as validation. Habitats covered include, saltmarsh, seagrass, sand dune, vegetated shingle, blue mussel beds as well as the priority habitats which have remained in this phase of mapping. It is important to note that we have not quantified the validity in each of the classes recorded, some habitats will have been mapped more confidently than others.

The habitat map line work was created from masking and segmenting the photography data (1m resolution) as well as LIDAR. Groups of similar pixels produced segments or parcels of data. The segments were then manually allocated a class from interpreting the imagery.