Archaeology, both as a process and resource, is fundamental to all activities of landscape change. Archaeology adds value and personality to places, shaping distinctiveness and 'USP', attracting investment, increasing amenities, and impacting directly on the sense of identity, wellbeing, and future of its citizens. In the immediate years to come, the Net Zero agenda will require extensive transformation of land; this, combined with the destructive environmental processes already triggered by climate change, will seriously impact the UK's vulnerable cultural heritage.

Baseline knowledge of the historic environment for many places in the UK is incomplete, or has not been improved for decades, presenting a critical moment and gaps in knowledge for heritage professionals as we race to respond to rapid transformation such as reforestation, peatland reclamation, coastal erosion and flooding. This 21st century challenge is currently met with 20th century technology: planning and mitigation decisions which determine the character of our physical environment rely on the quality of a Local Authority's (LA) Historic Environment Record (HER). Our project delivers a method to instantly improve the reliability and completeness of HER data, involving citizens at the heart of knowledge creation, and providing invaluable support to Local Authorities by providing Big Data pinpointing areas of high archaeological significance.

The project will be delivered in partnership with the National Trust, enabling their team to test pilot study areas (coastal, upland and pasture) and devise a market-ready solution for public companies, landowners and local authorities that far exceeds current provision at a fraction of the cost.

Using a Collective Intelligence (CI) model, the project will train people to rapidly assess satellite imagery, helping to improve and enrich baseline HER data. The availability of this information will have a tremendous impact on the de-risking, management and cost-effective planning of landscape transformation in all its forms, will be a tech-enabled step-change in the ability of heritage professionals to manage the historic environment.

The platform harnesses Collective Intelligence, training volunteers to identify archaeology from aerial images and historic mapping. Housed within a virtual learning environment and embedded mapping platform, citizen scientists will learn skills whilst screening existing HER information, enriching data, adding key metadata and location information, and highlighting sites that require further investigation. The process will identify unknown sites across far bigger landscapes, feeding directly into the HER that underpins each location, and providing deep public benefit.