Good land stewardship begins with understanding what is already there. The cluster has access to a growing library of spatial data — historic Ordnance Survey maps, high-resolution LiDAR terrain models, national land-use datasets, time-series satellite vegetation imagery, statutory flood risk, and soil wetness mapping. Each layer reveals something the others miss.
These pages pull data from the cluster's ecology platform — the same analysis tools used to generate member farm reports — and present them here with plain-English explanation for cluster members, neighbours and the wider public. The intent is that anyone looking at their own holding can make sense of what the data is saying, and know what it means for decisions they might make.
If you own or manage land within the Upper Medway catchment and would like to have access to detailed mapping of your own holding — historic OS, LiDAR, land use, vegetation, flood risk and wetness — consider joining the cluster. Get in touch at contact@uppermedway.org.
Where this data comes from: the cluster's analysis platform combines open data from the Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey, the National Library of Scotland's historic map archive, the European Space Agency's Copernicus programme, and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. The platform was built as part of a wider research project in the catchment and is made available to cluster members without charge.
The layers
Historic Ordnance Survey — 1880s–1900s
The landscape as it stood before the 20th century industrial changes — showing hedgerows, field patterns, woodlands, ponds and buildings at roughly the same scale as today's OS maps.
Open →
LiDAR terrain
Bare-earth laser-scanned elevation at 1-metre resolution. Reveals ghyll stream networks, ancient banks, pond hollows and water-flow pathways invisible on satellite photos.
Open →
Land cover & use
UKCEH Land Cover Map plus Crop Map of England — what is growing or standing where, and how the mix has shifted over recent years.
Open →
Vegetation vigour (EVI)
Enhanced Vegetation Index from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. Shows how vigorously plants are growing across the catchment and how that changes season by season.
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Flood risk
Environment Agency Flood Zones, surface water risk and LiDAR-derived pooling — where water moves, where it pools, and where natural flood management can help.
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Wetness
Topographic Wetness Index plus Sentinel-1 radar and Copernicus water-and-wetness layers. Where the ground holds water longest, and why that matters.
Open →Why this matters for stewardship
Each layer answers a different question. The historic map tells us what the landscape was, and therefore what was lost and what could plausibly be restored. The LiDAR tells us how water actually moves across the land — what will flood, what drains, where natural flood-management interventions will work. Land cover tells us the present-day baseline against which any change will be measured. The vegetation index tells us, year on year, whether the land is becoming more or less vegetatively productive.
Together they make the cluster's work measurable. Restoration is not just a feeling or a set of aspirations — it is a before-and-after picture, backed by data, that members can share with funders, regulators and each other.
Want data on your own holding?
Cluster members can request a tailored landscape report for their own holding, generated from these same layers. Contact us to arrange.
Contact the cluster