Hedgerows: Mapping the gaps with a combination of citizen science and artificial intelligence

Project Description

The HedgeHunters project was an interdisciplinary project developed to support and inform its sister project Hedgerows: Mapping the Gaps, where researchers led by Josh Wolstenholme developed a deep learning model and associated workflow capable of automatically identifying hedgerows and hedgerow gaps from aerial imagery across landscapes.

The UK Government has identified afforestation as a means of contributing to national CO2 reduction targets. The Committee on Climate Change has estimated the UK needs to plant 30,000 hectares of trees per year and extend hedges by 40% by 2050. This equates to approximately 50 million trees annually and an extra 100,000 miles of hedgerow by 2050. It is currently unclear where these trees and hedges will be planted, however it is likely that the majority will be through commercial forestry, requiring large swathes of land, potentially sacrificing productive agricultural land.

Across the north of England, thousands of kilometres of hedgerow are fragmented by gaps. A potential way to maximise the available area for afforestation ot to fill in the existing gaps in hedgerows. Currently, little research has been undertaken into the potential of hedgerow gaps for this purpose, especially when quantifying small gaps at the landscape scale, in comparison with research conducted into planting trees. Crucially, hedgerow gaps present the opportunity for afforestation, without the need for extensive land change. As the government develops new post-Brexit policy on land management, there may be additional incentives for landowners to plant hedges and fill hedgerow gaps

Katie Parsons led the HedgeHunters project and worked in partnership with the East Riding Voluntary Action Service (ERVAS) (link) and their Youth Green Influencers (aged 10 to 14) Green Influencers Scheme – The Ernest Cook Trust to co-create a citizen science project that would inform the deep learning model in the Hedgerows: Mapping the Gaps project.

Alongside this the Youth Green Influences sourced their own funding from Ernest Cook Trust to create a suite of aligned educational resources for parents, young people and professionals to use to educate themselves and others about the importance of Hedgerows and why we should be protecting them.
The young people led on two projects, the first one was the development of an online ‘zine’ (short format magazine). Here the young people won £360 from Ernest Cook Trust to create and gift a copy of the ‘zine’ to every school in Hull and East Riding, as well as a copy being available online for all.
The second project was to write and illustrate a children’s story book, with the help of researcher Katie Parsons, to use storytelling and empathy to engage readers in the problems that animals who reside in hedgerows face. The young people won £5,000 to develop, publish and gift a copy of “The Mystery of the Giant Claw” to all schools in Hull and East Riding.
The eBook can be found here (https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/giantclaw-ebook.html), or a physical copy purchased from here (https://amzn.eu/d/fsFohuA)