Space agency finds life on earth

SPACE TECHNOLOGY is being harnessed by the Countryside Council for Wales to gather information about different wildlife habitats.

CCW has been working with the British National Space Centre on a test project using satellites in space to help in its survey work.

This project looked at how well satellite data could identify different habitats on the Berwyn mountain range – an area originally mapped as part of the open access work.

It has been established that the results were up to 80% accurate.

Alan Brown, CCW‘s remote sensing manager, said: “Clearly there are big advantages in using space information.

“They can be very quick – a satellite now passes over Wales every day and records an image of the area in a matter of minutes.

“The images created give us an unparalleled opportunity to see Wales from outer-space, and provides a new way of revealing the dynamic changes that are taking place to our landscape.”

The project was set up under the BNSC‘s Government Information From The Space Sector (GIFTSS) programme.

The programme seeks to promote the uptake of space-derived information within the operation of other government departments.

Most of the imagery used in the project was taken by the Landsat satellite, which shows up differences in vegetation types during the growing season.