Introduction

The Land Cover Map of Great Britain 1990 (LCMGB) was the first complete map of the land cover of Great Britain since the 1960s. It was also the first of three land cover maps to be produced by what is now the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the later maps being LCM2000 and LCM2007.

LCMGB was produced using supervised maximum likelihood classifications of Landsat Thematic Mapper data (Fuller et al. 1994a). The map, based on a 25m grid, records 25 cover types, consisting of sea and inland water, beaches and bare ground, developed and arable land, and 18 types of semi-natural vegetation

Main users

LCMGB data has been used by licensees in pursuit of academic, policy-related or commercial interests in the following fields:

• Atmosphere and climate
• Water and catchments
• Marine and coastal
• Ecology and conservation
• Impact assessment
• Health and hazards
• Agriculture
• Landscape planning
• Urban studies
• Statistics, information and maps
• Education and publicity

Technical details

An overview of the specification of LCMGB can be found on the Technical Details page.  

Data licensing

An explanation of how LCMGB can be obtained under licence from CEH is available on the Accessing Land Cover Mapping page.    

Further information

Please see the publications below.

• The Land Cover Map of Great Britain – a Description
• LCMGB user guide