Biogeographic Zones Living England (2021)

asNeeded

For the purposes of data processing and habitat classification, England was divided into 14 Biogeographic Zones (BGZs). National Character Areas, which consists of 90 terrestrial regions based on their cultural and natural characteristics, were used as the basis of defining the zones and are available under an OGL. These were grouped into BGZs such that each zone was covered by the same Sentinel-2 orbit, and that the zones were approximately similar in size. The total number of BGZs was chosen to balance resource requirements (the number of individual zones needing to be handled) versus scalability (the maximum area that could realistically be processed at a time). All of these zones fall within a single Sentinel-2 orbit, with the exception of BGZ 10 where two of the Natural Areas span more than one Sentinel-2 orbit. The initial BGZ boundaries were expanded to include intertidal and coastal regions where each zone was buffered by 3 km, before manual post-processing ensured there was no overlap between adjacent zones. Where necessary, editing has been used to alter the polygons to remove complex features (e.g. estuaries) when these occurred at the boundary between BGZs.