Crowdsourcing Landscape Change

Local authorities such as Hampshire County Council (HCC) have huge archives of aerial photography and satellite image data that contain an abundance of information relating to changes in the landscape. However, because of the volume and complexity of the data and the lack of resources and political will, their value is not being fully realised. Crowdsourcing Landscape Change will develop an innovative crowdsourcing solution for the analysis of such datasets by the general public via an online platform. Guided by the requirements of HCC, RSAC Ltd will apply its expertise in land cover change mapping to the adaptation of crowdsourcing technology pioneered by UoP for the development of a pre-commercial service demonstrator aimed at creating new insight from Earth Observation data by mapping relevant landscape changes between image dates. Such a service would be of interest for the improvement of environmental management and protection processes in many local authorities, and the service also has potential as a sustainable business proposition in a range of other markets where large quantities of Earth Observation data are collected and stored.