A NEW online map displays the most comprehensive digital records of historic Scottish woodlands dating back 180 years.
The National Library of Scotland (NLS) collaborated with tech platform Zulu Ecosystems to create the landmark map using machine learning, which was able to extract all the woodland displayed on Ordnance Survey 1st edition maps dating all the way back to 1840.
The OS First Series Woodland Layer accurately pinpoints the locations and extent of historic woods and is available to view on the NLS website.
Members of the public are being invited to contribute to the improvement of the map by highlighting any missing woodlands.
Zulu Ecosystems used the details of woodland recorded in a 6-inch, first edition OS map of Scotland (1843-1882) held in the NLS archives.
They then refined the data through a combination of machine learning, post-processing techniques and manual verification to ensure its accuracy across a large scale.
When compared to present-day satellite imagery, it clearly highlights areas where woodlands once stood in Scotland.
Edward Asseily, CEO of Zulu Ecosystems, said: “The 1st edition Ordnance Survey maps published in the late 19th century are a precious resource for locating areas of ancient woodland.
“Previously, government agencies, woodland conservationists, and land managers have had to manually identify individual areas of woodland shown on these early maps. Now, we have a single digital layer showing Scotland's ancient woodlands.
“Once the layer has been refined, it will be freely downloadable to the public. Identifying these historic woods is crucial to understanding the scale of their decline so that we can accelerate their revival.
“This window to our past helps to identify and prioritise areas with the highest potential for natural regeneration and shows where interventions are urgently needed to restore these once-thriving ecosystems.”
Chris Fleet from the NLS added: “We are very keen to share information from our map collections, and this collaboration has created an important new dataset showing woodland on Ordnance Survey 1st edition six-inch maps.
“We hope that the refinement and improvement of this woodland layer before its release as an open dataset will assist the wide range of people today who are interested in Scotland’s historic woodland.”
The interactive map is available to view here.
