2014 Coastal Land Use Data. Digital survey of aerial imagery and desktop mapping software. Carried out by the University of Leicester. Project details: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/documents/mapping-our-shores-fifty-years-of-land-use-change-at-the-coast.pdf
In 1965, concerned about the impact of development along the coast, the National Trust launched ‘Enterprise Neptune’ to help raise money to buy and protect the most ‘pristine’ stretches. In order to understand which areas were most at risk from development, University of Reading staff & students were commissioned to carry out a physical coastal land use survey that was lovingly recorded on 350 OS 2.5 miles to 1 inch scale maps (1965 Coastal Land Use dataset).
Half a century later, the Neptune Coastline Campaign, has raised £65 million, enabling the National Trust to acquire an additional 550 miles of coastline to a total of 775 miles. To celebrate this milestone the Trust commissioned the University of Leicester to re-survey the land use along the coast with a desktop methodology that focused on change.
For more information on the creation of the Land Use datasets see: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tran.12128/abstract
