A land characteristic data bank for Great Britain

Land and land use attributes have been quantitatively recorded from existing map and statistic sources for the 2858 10 x 10 km grid squares (cells) of the Ordnance Survey National Grid which contain land in Great Britain. 126 attributes are grouped in categories of physiography; climate; geology; soils ;topography; land use; agricultural land classification ; and conservation status. They provide the initial major component of a computer-stored land data set appropriate to national and regional scales of ecological assessment and resource evaluation. Standard statistics outputs supply complete or partial data for individual cells, or total and average values of required attributes for any group of cells. Map outputs display, list, and summarise data for cells which meet specifications of individual or combined attributes, for Great Britain as a whole, or for required regions. Recording of the initial data, their computer input and editing, and the availability of analysis and retrieval programmes, have completed the first phase of this data bank. Intended developments that are outlined include land classifications based on the data, correlations of land characteristics or classes with biological distributions already available at this scale, and extension and upgrading of the initial data set. Information from the data set can be supplied at agreed charges