- 1442 - 
Jena Interpretoscope. Use has also been made of the University's 
ICL 1904S computer. 
Natural environment studies 
In a country such as the United Kingdom where the population density is 
relatively high and the pressures for land development are great, there 
has been an increasing need to conserve natural resources such as wild- 
life, vegetation and soils. As with all resource management the first 
requisite is to establish the existing state of those resources and to 
provide a sound data base on which to decide management and conservation 
policies. It is clearly recognised that remote sensing can play an 
important part at this stage but since few studies have been carried out 
in the UK it is difficult to assess the extent to which available systems 
can be successfully applied. 
Two projects carried out within the Unit have attempted to examine this 
particular problem. The first of these has involved the use of multi- 
spectral and false colour photography for soil survey in upland Britain 
(Brack, 1975). Many upland areas in the country are not covered by maps 
of the soil survey of England and Wales, and because of their relative 
inaccessibility would take considerable time to be mapped by conventional 
methods, It has been shown that air survey methods can greatly reduce 
this time with a saving of up to 75%, although the sole use of black and 
white photography may result in little saving since that particular form 
of air survey has had little success in upland Britain for soil survey 
purposes. 
Two contrasting study areas where chosen for this particular project; 
Sedgwick in the County of Cumbria which consists of a heavily glaciated 
landscape characterised by fluvio glacial deposits and where major land 
use is cattle grazing on permanent grassland, and Ingleborough Hill in 
North Yorkshire where mountain and moorland soils are associated with 
semi-natural grass cover used for rough grazing by sheep. For each area, 
two sets of false colour photographs were obtained, one having been 
taken in the late Spring (May/June) of 1974 and the other having been 
obtained during the Autumn (October/November) of 1973. In each case the 
scale of photograph used was 1:15000. The original intention was to 
compare this data source with multispectral photography but the latter 
was supplied only after a two year delay, and ultimately proved to be of 
poor quality. This aspect of the project was therefore regretfully 
abondoned, although some useful results were obtained from the sole use of 
the colour infrared material. 
In both areas generally soils could not be mapped directly from the photo- 
graphs because of permanent vegetation cover, and indicators of soil type 
such as relief, drainage vegetation and agricultural land use had to be 
considered, This was achieved by using "physiographic analysis" which is 
based on the relationships between physiography and soils, and recognition 
of the dynamic processes in the landscape. Such an analysis results in a 
map of terrain units which are equivalent to soil associations. 
In the case of Sedgewick, topography was the best "indicator" of soil and 
consequently both seasonal sets of photography could be used for inter- 
pretation. At Ingleborough Hill, however, vegetation cover was moor use- 
ful and the Autumn photography appeared to differentiate more clearly 
between vegetation types. 
    
  
   
   
   
  
  
  
   
  
  
   
  
    
    
  
   
  
  
   
   
  
   
   
   
  
  
   
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  
    
   
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
   
    
   
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