The UK’s Peak District National Park Authority, in partnership with Cranfield University and The Alan Turing Institute, is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate the production of detailed land cover maps.

The AI classification was conducted using Convolutional Neural Networks, a deep-learning AI method, and merged with topographic maps from Ordnance Survey to create a complete land cover map of the Peak District.

This is a significant advancement over the last detailed land cover census for National Parks, carried out over 30 years ago by the Countryside Commission in 1991.