Investigating BGS and CEH data integration: using DiGMapGB and Land Cover Map 2000 as a test case. British Geological Survey Internal Report, IR/04/154

This report describes the results of a joint project between CEH and BGS. The project ran from October 2003 to March 2004 and was funded by NERC Executive Board. The first aim of the project was to carry out focussed scientific comparisons of two key datasets, the BGS Digital Map of Great Britain (DiGMapGB) and the CEH Land Cover Map 2000 (LCM2000). The second aim was to build on this by investigating other areas of potential scientific and data integration between BGS and CEH, to see how much potential there is for future collaborative work. In terms of achieving the first aim, the project has shown successfully how a variety of statistical GIS, database and manual (‘by eye’) techniques can be employed to compare the two major datasets, DiGMapGB and LCM2000, providing valuable lessons for future similar work on other combinations of NERC data. The comparison work between DiGMapGB and LCM2000 has demonstrated that the distribution of land cover types is not random when compared to geology, but any natural correlations tend to be heavily masked by anthropogenic effects. The project has been very successful in achieving the second aim; with a wide-ranging review across both BGS and CEH demonstrating how much could be gained from bringing the environmental data and expertise of the two organisations more closely together. An extensive list of potential areas of collaborative work, which would benefit from sharing of BGS and CEH environmental datasets, has been produced. This should prove invaluable for planning any future collaborative programmes within and between BGS and CEH. These include various aspects of hydrogeology and groundwater contamination, biogeographical and ecological risk assessment, heavy metal critical load mapping, urban planning, prediction of natural ground instability, and even forensic scienc