Living Wales is a unique and novel world-first concept that aims to capture the state and dynamics of Wales’s landscape, in near real time, historically and into the future (over the long term) through integration of earth observation data, supportive ground measurements and process models.
Living Wales is primarily a research project that is working with and supporting existing initiatives to collate, correctly process, analyze and also make publicly available the vast archive of optical and radar satellite observations over Wales (at least since the mid 1980s) and derived spatial outputs that directly address key issues relevant to the Welsh economy, policy, environment and populations. The research component will focus on:
- The provision of quantitative biophysical data (e.g., on vegetation productivity, structure and carbon dynamics, hydrology and flood sequences) for assessing trends attributed to climate or other environmental changes.
- The routine production of detailed and high-resolution land cover and habitat classifications across Wales for multiple points in time based on relevant taxonomies.
- Identification of options for optimizing land use and also conserving and restoring landscapes and ecosystems.
Living Wales will utilize and capitalize on existing and new geographical information (e.g., on agricultural use), models (e.g., carbon, hydrology) and scientific knowledge (e.g., habitat links to biodiversity) and will additionally focus on coordinating, contributing and collating field, drone and airborne datasets acquired over Wales.
For further information, see our publications page and our strategic plan.