Comprehensive Mapping and Data Solutions
Field Boundary Maps & Digital Land Boundary Data
A Field Boundary is a line which identifies the nature of the physical barrier feature and its characteristics when adjacent to, or contained within, specific types of land cover. Field Boundary map features are predominately classified in Rural and Moorland areas of Great Britain. These are available as part of our custom mapping services, with the ability to superimpose field boundaries on OS maps.
What is Field Boundary data?
Field Boundary data provides detailed information about physical features that separate areas of land, including hedgerows, walls, tree-lined boundaries and wooded strips. These digital mapping features help users understand the structure, characteristics and layout of rural landscapes.
Field Boundary maps are created for use within GIS and mapping workflows, allowing professionals to analyse land parcels, vegetation features and landscape characteristics without relying solely on manual surveys.
The data is particularly valuable for agricultural planning, environmental assessments, land management, biodiversity studies and rural development projects.
Field Boundary feature type
Field Boundaries on OS maps are coincident with and reference all, or part of, an underlying OS NGD Structure Built Obstruction Line. They represent physical barriers between adjoining areas of land. There are five distinct categories to describe Field Boundary features: Tree Canopy, Wooded Strip, Hedge, Wall and Other. An 'Unknown' description is applied when the feature hasn’t yet been classified.
What information is included in Field Boundary maps?
Field Boundary datasets can provide information about the type and characteristics of boundary features including:
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Hedgerows
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Wooded Strips
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Walls
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Other Features
Height and width
Vegetated field boundary features are given minimum, maximum and average (mean) height and width values on our field boundary maps. Values are rounded up to the nearest 0.5 metres and provide an indication of the height or width rather than an absolute value.
Consideration is given to the natural movement of these features and seasonal variances, therefore during the calculation process, the Hedge width calculation includes a tolerance of 2.0 metres, and the width calculation of Tree Canopy and Wooded Strip includes a tolerance of 3.0 metres.
The minimum, maximum and average values are calculated using the 10th and 90th percentile values, sampled along the length of the Field Boundary feature at regular intervals. The calculated average mean value represents the most appropriate average height or width for each section of vegetated Field Boundary. Wall, Unknown and Other features are not given a height or width value. For more information view more of our digital custom mapping services.
Applications of Field Boundary Data
Agriculture and land management: Field boundary data helps farmers, land managers and agricultural professionals understand field layouts, boundary structures and landscape features. Applications include land management planning, agricultural analysis, farm mapping & habitat management
Environmental assessments: Field boundaries play an important role in biodiversity, habitat connectivity and ecological analysis.. This data can support landscape assessments, biodiversity projects, habitat studies & environmental planning.
Planning and development: Understanding existing boundaries and vegetation features helps planners and developers assess sites and identify potential constraints before development begins.
Flood and drainage analysis: Vegetated boundaries, hedgerows and landscape features can influence water movement and surface drainage patterns, making boundary data useful alongside environmental datasets & flood risk data.
Woodland Boundary flag
The 'isWoodlandBoundary' attribute is a Boolean flag to identify whether a field boundary is adjacent to a land cover area classified as woodland. ‘Woodland’ is defined as a land cover polygon with a classification of Coniferous Trees and/or Non-Coniferous Trees.
Vegetated Field Boundary features adjacent to an area of woodland in the OS NGD Land Theme, which include a classification of Coniferous Trees, Non-Coniferous Trees, Scattered Coniferous Trees or Scattered Non-Coniferous Trees, will have the 'isWoodlandBoundary' attribute populated with ‘True’ and height and width values will be null.
Samples