LibGuides: Biological & Environmental Sciences: Maps & Geospatial

Digimap is an online map and data delivery service for education and research. Create or interrogate a map online by selecting an appropriate base map, adding annotations and customising the content, use measurement and query tools to learn more about any study area. Download the raw spatial data in a wide range of formats for use in local GIS, CAD or image processing software.

Connect to Digimap from Portal to use the following Collections. You must accept the licence agreement the first time you use each one.

Digimap This link opens in a new window
Digimap: Ordnance Survey Data Collection This link opens in a new window
Digimap (Environment) This link opens in a new window
Digimap: Geology Collection This link opens in a new window
Digimap: Aerial This link opens in a new window
Provides access to some of the highest quality aerial photography available for Great Britain. Created and licensed by Getmapping plc. Access is convenient and on-demand to a range of interactive tools, allowing interrogation and analysis of the data online and offline. Data is available to view, query and print in Aerial Roam and available to search and retrieve in Aerial Download.
Aerial Roam allows you to view detailed aerial imagery at various fixed scales.
Digimap: Lidar This link opens in a new window
Digimap: Marine This link opens in a new window
Raster nautical charts derived from UK Hydrographic Office paper charts and chart panels and Marine Themes vector data covering all UK waters. All data is licensed by OceanWise.
Digimap: Global This link opens in a new window
Digimap: Historic Collection This link opens in a new window
Digimap: Society This link opens in a new window
Digimap: Pilot This link opens in a new window

Click the Resources tab for lots of help and support including quick guides on how to use Roam and Data Download, how to do spatial analysis in GIS, how to cite your maps and data and more.

Open Geography Portal from the National Office of Statistics gives free and open access to the definitive source of geographic products, web applications, story maps, services and APIs. The maps cover many different geographic unit types (administrative, census, health, electoral, postcode, rural urban classification and more). There is a link to the ONS Geography Linked Data Portal which allows access directly to data within the geography products, in machine-readable form and using an Application Programming Interface.

All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated.

More Map & Geospatial Information Sources

FAO GeoNetwork
Provides internet access to interactive maps, satellite imagery and related spatial databases maintained by FAO and partners. Select the "FAO Core Data Sets" tabs to access the datasets that are grouped into the categories: Administrative And Political Boundaries ; Agriculture And Livestock ; Applied Ecology ; Biological And Ecological Resources ; Climate And Agroclimatology ; Fisheries ; Forestry ; Hydrology And Water Resources ; Land Cover And Land Use ; Population And Socio-Economic Indicators ; Soils And Soil Resources ; Topography
Bathymetrical Survey of the Fresh-Water Lochs of Scotland, 1897-1909
This Bathymetrical Survey was the first comprehensive examination of the depths and nature of Scottish lochs. Over 10 years some 60,000 soundings were taken of all the major Scottish lochs, some 562 in total, resulting in the first detailed charts of all their depths. These bathymetrical charts are the most detailed maps showing the depths of these lochs, and they contain useful information too on the surrounding hinterland.
Satellite image overlays of Bathymetrical Survey Lochs, 1897-1909
This selection of 33 geo-referenced bathymetrical charts of Scottish lochs allows them to be directly compared with modern Google Maps and Virtual Earth layers.
Maps of the United States from 1884 to 2006
The USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer lets you browse the extensive collection of historical maps of the USA scanned by the U.S. Geological Survey and Esri. You can download GeoPDFs and access the historical maps as high resolution georeferenced images for use in web mapping applications. There is a timeline feature to easily select the desired maps.
Fieldtrip Open
A free mapping and data collection

Scotland's Soils includes maps and downloadable data and a range of associated information provided by a partnership of the James Hutton Insititute, SNH, SEPA, Forestry Commission Scotland and the Scottish Government..

Includes all James Hutton Institute soils data previously only available by special licence.

Scotland's Environment brings you a whole range of maps and spatial data. There is also a Land Information Search helping you to identify the presence and location of a range of features and environmentally sensitive areas and risks.

This initiave from the Open University and the Wolfston Foundation, the Open Science Laboratory features investigations based on on-screen instruments, remote access experiments and virtual scenarios using real data. It includes virtual field trips, tutorials on interpreting maps etc. Try searching for 'field trip' to see a range of relevant courses. Several activities are available to all, while others are available only to registered users.

Historic Maps

NLS Map Images This link opens in a new window
The maps date between 1560 and 1970 and relate primarily to Scotland.Some maps of areas beyond Scotland, including maps of England and Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, and Jamaica are also available.
NLS Map and Spatial Data This link opens in a new window
Map and geospatial data from the collections at National Library of Scotland including Stevenson Maps and Plans of Scotland, GB1900 Gazeteer, Edinburgh Boundaries and LiDAR Point Cloud.

Topographical Collection of King George III
18,000 digital images of historic maps, views and texts from the Topographical Collection of King George III.