CHOBHAM Common National Nature Reserve is to become one of the first-ever places to test a combination of satellite Earth observation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and citizen science, which will help improve how we manage and protect our wild places.

The project is part of Space4Nature, a new People’s Postcode Lottery-funded scheme.

Space4Nature is a three-year partnership between the University of Surrey, Surrey Wildlife Trust, Buglife and Painshill Park Trust. It will use satellite imagery, artificial intelligence and the power of volunteering to help map, connect and restore wildlife habitats across Surrey.

Chobham Common is one of the largest nature reserves in south-east England and nationally significant due to its diversity of plants and animals including Dartford Warblers, Raft Spiders and Sand Lizards.

As the climate changes and the risk of droughts and wildfires increases, heathland such as at Chobham Common will require more protection. Space4Nature will lead the way in providing scientists with a far better map of the mosaic of habitats and their sub-categories on the site and eventually across the county.

It will enable them to work with landowners to re-connect important sites for nature, making it easier for wildlife to move to access food, safe havens from predators and opportunities to breed.

The common is owned by Surrey County Council and managed for nature by Surrey Wildlife Trust. For more than 200 generations, rural communities have carefully managed this open countryside, creating a rich patchwork of mini-habitats from ponds to woodland to open grassland, as well as dense patches of heather and gorse.

The Space4Nature team will use past and current very high-resolution satellite imagery of the site to analyse and map Chobham’s palette of diverse terrain, and will use ‘ground level’ survey information gathered by conservationists and local volunteers to help teach AI software to accurately predict similar pockets of habitat across the site.

This will enable the team to recognise and pinpoint which areas of land should be joined up to other habitats of similar type.

Professor Richard Murphy, director of the Centre for Environment & Sustainability at Surrey University explained: “With nature in crisis, we want Surrey to lead the way in improving how we manage and protect our wild places.

Chobham Common's diversity of plants and animals includes the Dartford Warbler. (The Wildlife Trusts)

“By using images from space, now available in unprecedented sharpness of detail, Space4Nature will help us develop a more accurate understanding than ever before of our natural environment, and what we can do to preserve it.

“Chobham Common is a perfect place to start combining our Earth observation capabilities with Artificial Intelligence to map, and then connect, the diverse habitats there, at other places in Surrey, and ultimately on a hugely ambitious scale.”

Another key site for trialling Space4Nature’s satellite mapping project will be project partner Painshill Park in Cobham.

The 18th century landscape garden was designed as a “living canvas” by Charles Hamilton: it boasts a large lake, woodland, arboreta, a vineyard and grassland. This range of environments will be ideal for testing and refining the satellite imagery and AI.

Thanks to Space4Nature, schoolchildren who visit as part of Painshill’s programme of curriculum-based outdoor learning activities will learn how to record species and investigate nature as they examine the park’s plants and animals and their habitats.

Space4Nature is also carrying out early mapping and restoration work at Quarry Hangers, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Caterham. Owned and managed by Surrey Wildlife Trust, the 29-hectare chalk downland site combines woodland and scrub with several types of grassland habitats, including intensively grazed pasture and rougher pasture. It is managed to maintain a wide diversity of plant and animal species.

In some areas as many as 40 different wildflowers and grasses have been identified within a square metre, including Common Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Wild Marjoram, Common and Chalk Milkworts, Wild Thyme, Wild Basil and Wild Strawberry. These plants provide habitats for a rich diversity of invertebrate species including the Round-mouthed Snail, the Common Plume and Black-striped Longhorn moths and the Green Dock-beetle.

In spring 2023, the Space4Nature team will be asking for hundreds of local volunteers to help survey and assess habitats across Surrey. To register your interest, visit: www.surreywildlifetrust.org/what-we-do/conservation-projects/space4nature.