Land Use Mapping and Analysis

Land Use Mapping and Analysis

The collection of information about how we use the landscape goes back many centuries. By the 1930's there was the national Land Utilisation Survey captured on one inch maps which was partially updated in the mid 1960's
By the time GIS arrived there were a miriad of different land use classifications in use across the UK. There was an attempt to standardise these through the National Land Use Database (NLUD) specifcation at the start of the century but it has never been widely adopted.
Seppe and Chris have undertaken many land use studies over the years. Some have been to classify local authority areas to the NLUD standard, others have been to integrate conflicting classifications and often standarise between land use and land cover coding.
One of the largest land use/land cover classifications was that created for the UKMap programme which is now published by Geomni UK, part of Verisk inc. This has a 4 level hierarchy, based on NLUD version 4.4, with some 260 use types and 10 cover types. This gave a remarkable total of over 1600 unique categorisations for land in the urban and rural fringe areas.
Much of the classifications derive from photo interpretation, but they nearly always involve some level of field work or data verification. There are few areas of the UK that Seppe and Chris have not visited at some time as part of data collection process to support a land use study.
One of the drivers for the future is understanding land use change, so that we can make better use of a very valuable and finite resource.

Current Projects

Parish of St Helens, City of London
'From Shakespeare to Skyscrapers'

Chris Going and Seppe Cassettari have been working with a member of staff from London's Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) who is about to publish a book on the time Shakespeare lived in the parish of St Helens in the City of London.

The book covers the period 1595 to 1598 or there abouts and shows how Shakespeare makes reference in a number of plays written around that time to features in his vicinity. These include the nunnery that was attached to the church of St Helens as well as very specific features such as a two bucket well, for which there is a contemporary record.

Fortunately the Great Fire of London in 1666 did not quite extend to the church and its surrounds, so contemporary maps from the late 17th century are a good reflection of the buildings that existed in shakespeare's day.

But this area of the City is under constant change and development and to show this we have built-up a database of many map layers from different times. 

To this database is being added information on land use which shows how the commercial nature of the city has changed, with the steady growth in banking and insurance and the loss of residential properties, the nunnery and other commercial activities that existed in the 16th century.

Seppe Cassettari is giving a short illustrated talk on the project called 'Shakespeare to Skyscrapers' for the British Cartographic Society Tea Time Talk series in early January 2021.
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