The RPA Commons GOP is a simple point dataset, that marks the location of observations made by surveyors in a sample of parcels and records the land cover according to set criteria. It has been maintained by RPA Geospatial Services since 2015.
RPA currently collects ground observation data from the following source:
• Common land parcels eligible for the Control with Remote Sensing (CwRS) element of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), and that fall within zones selected for monitoring claims. The locations and size of these zones vary from year to year.
The field surveys for are carried out on RPA’s behalf by Cyient Europe Ltd.
They have been acquired for both Control with Remote Sensing (CwRS) and for Commons Eligibility Mapping programmes that have been completed during the year.
The points are attributed with:
• Parcel reference ID (as with RPA Parcel Points)
• Crop or land cover observed to be / have been growing at that location
• Date of observation
• Whether observations were made by RPA or an external surveyor
• Any additional comments
Two versions will be made available: one with photos of the land cover attached (RPA_Commons_GOP_2023_FULL) and the other with them removed (RPA_Commons_GOP_2023_Basic).
The data for the Commons Eligibility Mapping programmes is part of CwRS programme.
It is intended that releasing the ground observations would benefit research in automation, machine learning, and our national food production.
RPA’s GOP use the Open Government Licence v3.0 as used by other publicly accessible data on the Defra Data Services Platform and will be updated approximately every year, subject to the continuation of current policies.
Attribution statement: © Rural Payments Agency copyright and/or database right 2023. All rights reserved.