UKCEH Land Cover Maps

The UKCEH Land Cover Maps describe the physical material on the surface of the United Kingdom providing an uninterrupted national dataset of land cover classes from grassland, woodland and rivers to artificial materials such as urban and suburban built-up areas.

UKCEH has a long history of using satellite imagery to produce land cover maps from the first national Land Cover Map of Great Britain in 1990 to the current production of annual land cover maps which are capable of use for change detection.

Our Land Cover Maps are a trusted source of information on land cover for the whole of the United Kingdom and have been used for the management of natural resources, urban planning, carbon accounting and flood risk modelling, to name but a few. UKCEH’s Land Cover Maps have been successfully used in a wide range of applications by government departments and agencies, county councils, charities and utility companies.

Land Cover Map products

NEW! Land Cover Map 2019, 2018 and 2017

LCM2019, LCM2018 and LCM2017 map 21 UKCEH Land Cover Classes based on UK Biodiversity Action Plan Broad Habitats. These are the first land cover maps to be produced from new methodologies which enable annual land cover map production.

NEW! Land Cover Change 1990-2015

Land Cover Change 1990-2015 is a land cover change data set produced from simplified versions of LCM1990 and LCM2015. The simplified versions of LCM1990 and LCM2015 were produced with consistent methods especially to enable the creation of this 25-year change data set.

Land Cover Map 2015

This product was released in April 2017. LCM2015 is derived from satellite images and digital cartography and provides land cover information for the entire UK.

Land Cover Map 2007

LCM2007, which was released in July 2011, was the third land cover map in the series.

Land Cover Map 2000

LCM2000 updated and substantially upgraded the Land Cover Map of Great Britain 1990.

Land Cover Map 1990

The first digital land cover map for Great Britain derived from satellite imagery.

Land cover change 1990-2015

Main users

Our Land Cover Maps are successfully used by government departments and agencies throughout the UK, county councils, charities, commissions and environmental management bodies. They have a wide range of applications in pursuit of academic, policy-related and commercial interests in the following areas:

Atmosphere and climate	Agriculture and forestry
Water and catchments	Landscape planning
Ecosystem service assessment	Telecommunications
Marine and coastal	Urban studies
Ecology and conservation	Statistics, information and maps
Impact assessment	Education and publicity
Health and hazards	Carbon accounting

Obtaining UKCEH's Land Cover Maps

Academic research and education

All of UKCEH’s Land Cover Maps are available for free to users of the EDINA Environment Digimap service which includes staff and students at more than 100 UK further and higher education establishments.

Non-commercial use of raster data

All of UKCEH’s raster Land Cover Maps (all 20m, 25m and 1km raster datasets) are available to download and use for free for non-commercial organisations and their contractors from the UKCEH Environmental Information Platform:

Non-commercial use of vector data

Non-commercial organisations and their contractors can access all vector Land Cover Maps from UKCEH under licence. While data fees will not be charged, administration fees (total of £300 plus VAT) will apply. A condition of the licence is that detailed information on how the data are used is provided, in order for UKCEH to improve our product development and stakeholder engagements. Understanding how and where our data are being used is very important to UKCEH. Please make a request using this licence application form (Word).

Commercial internal business use

All of UKCEH’s Land Cover Maps are available for commercial internal business use under licence and subject to payment of a licence fee. Please make a request via our web form, email Spatial Data or or telephone +44 (0)1491 692716 for more information.

Innovation use and value-added reselling

UKCEH encourages use of its intellectual property in value added products and services. Our intellectual property can be made available without charge for Innovation Use in order to allow feasibility studies and the development of products and services prior to arranging a bespoke value added reseller agreement. Please make a request via our web form, email Spatial Data or telephone +44 (0)1491 692716 for more information.

Web mapping service

UKCEH provides a Web Mapping Service for all Land Cover Map 25m and 1km raster data. Using our map viewer, high-resolution data for the whole of Great Britain can be seen, but not downloaded. Images of Land Cover Map data can be captured but, if these are published, they must be acknowledged appropriately.

Web form

Please fill in our Data Request Form to request map data for commercial internal business use, innovation use or value added reselling.

Back to Information Products menu