Data tool aims to help developers meet biodiversity metric

Most significantly, the product can be used to conduct BNG assessments – both for early workflow desktop analysis and for use by ecologists in the field. Developers, landowners, and ecologists can also better understand the composition of their land cover at scale before conducting more detailed surveys.

For example, Wessex Water has used OS ELC data to understand the biodiversity of hundreds of sites in one spatial picture and apply this data to its 30-year projections for BNG.

Linckia, one of a recent Geovation Accelerator cohort, is the partner that takes OS ELC data and serves it to Wessex Water via their Habitat Fabric dataset and BNG application.

“We really like OS Enhanced Land Cover, which we integrate into Linckia’s BNG solution on the Esri platform,” said co-founder Luke Chittock. “It gives us a scalable, authoritative, and auditable approach that we can trust, delivering better outcomes for our customers. Applying our ecology expertise to the data to create Habitat Fabric, we have seen a 40 per cent reduction in data processing costs from earlier approaches, rising to 90 per cent reduction when compared to processing imagery for the same outcomes.”

“This can shave days, or even weeks, from development times, and with 1.5 million homes in the pipeline, that could really add up”

Esri UK, the GIS software, spatial analytics and location intelligence specialist, has highlighted the journey of OS ELC data flowing into Habitat Fabric via Esri tools and into the hands of ecologists in its blog, showing how digital information can make a real impact on the ground. 

“The Government’s home-building target, combined with Defra’s BNG legislation, has made a market condition where ecologists are in high demand. One of the benefits of OS Enhanced Land Cover is to boost the productivity of those ecologists and to make their time count,” said Dr Jack Parkin, product manager for the built and natural environment at OS.

“We aggregate multiple geospatial datasets together to provide a provisional assessment of habitats on the ground which saves ecologists time both in desktop analysis and pre-screening in the field. This can shave days, or even weeks, from development times, and with 1.5 million homes in the pipeline, that could really add up.”

Built as a foundational geospatial dataset for ecology management, OS ELC could also help support the planning of nature-based restoration projects, such as re-wilding, flood risk management and green corridors.