Earth Observation

Earth Observation provides an exciting opportunity for monitoring & assessment

Earth observation (EO) techniques can support the national condition assessments for a rapid understanding of the current state of natural resources and the trajectory of change with comparison to past data.

The uses of EO are vast, and when combined with a robust ground truthing programme (as ERAMMP are doing through the National Field Survey), they can provide a high level of confidence on broad scale and even fine scale assessment.

Within ERAMMP, EO is being used primarily to assess soil erosion and landscape features (such as linear features).

Find out more in the links below.

Soil Erosion

This report reviews the technologies to capture evidence of soil erosion, with a special focus on the possible opportunity photo or satellite imagery surveys provide for identifying where erosion is occurring and then it can be linked to landscape and land-use factors, providing a means of identifying causes and producing mitigation strategies.

Report 18. Soil Erosion

Soil degradation

This report forms a brief summary after Phase-1 of the Soil Degradation, Erosion & Compaction project within ERAMMP. It outlines what has been done and what will be required for Phase-2.

Report 45. Soil degradation

Mapping hedges with satellite & lidar

The Welsh Government (WG) uses data on hedges and field boundaries for a variety of purposes including scheme delivery, environmental monitoring and regulatory compliance. This project explored the potential for high resolution satellite data to provide accurate spatial data on hedge location and length.

Report 56. Mapping hedges with satellite & lidar

EO soil erosion and damage

Earth Observation (EO) offers an important monitoring platform for detecting soil erosion and damage (SED). In this report two case studies are presented. The first compares imagery of different resolutions and its ability to detect SED features. While the second, compares time-lapse images for assessing changes in a landslide. A final section describes some of the challenges and opportunities for using EO to detect soil characteristics and their change.

Report 57. EO soil erosion and damage

The ERAMMP National Field Survey

A key strand of ERAMMP is to undertake a National Field Survey in Wales to provide information in order to evaluate the ongoing Glastir agricultural-environmental and Sustainable Land Management plan.

Find out more about the NFS