Key information
Scale:
Tier 1: 1:625 000Tier 2: 1:250 000
Tier 3: 1:50 000
Coverage:
Great BritainAvailability:
FreeFormat:
GIS polygon data. (ESRI, MapInfo, other available by request)Price:
Free for commercial, research and public use under the Open Government Licence. Please acknowledge the material.
Uses:
Local-level to Regional-level useGet Data
Free access
Free for commercial, research and public use under the Open Government Licence. Please acknowledge the material.
GeoIndexDownload dataSupporting documents
The BGS GeoScour Open datasets provide a generalised overview of the natural characteristics and properties of catchment and riverine environments for the assessment of river scour in Great Britain.

BGS GeoScour provides information for users on the natural characteristics and properties of catchment and riverine environments for the assessment of river scour in Great Britain.
This dataset
The GeoScour Open dataset comprises three different tiers of geographical information system (GIS) data containing seven different data layers. Each tier represents a different scale of assessment, from a high-level catchment through subcatchment data to detailed river-reach data. The datasets are polygon (area) layers and river lines, which are described using straightforward classifications and enabling a scour susceptibility assessment.
Tier 1 — catchment level
Tier 1 consists of one dataset: catchment stability (1:625 000 scale), which identifies and describes the relative catchment-scale characteristics in terms of landscape evolution, sediment availability and typical response in flood conditions.
Tier 2 — subcatchment level
Tier 2 consists of a suite of five subcatchment datasets (1:250 000 scale) including:
- catchment designated sites
- catchment flood accommodation
- catchment geological runoff potential
- catchment morphology
- catchment urban coverage
The catchment geological runoff potential and morphology layers provide the dominant geological runoff potential and morphology per catchment, respectively. The catchment designated sites, flood accommodation and urban coverage layers provide the percentage coverage of all protected sites (AWI, NNR, Ramsar, SAC, SPA and SSSI), flood accommodation space and small and large urban areas per catchment, respectively.
Tier 3 — riverine level
Tier 3 open consists of one layer at riverine level (1:50 000 scale): river geological properties.
This layer provides statistics on specific geological properties per river reach. The geological properties include superficial deposits vs bedrock, rocks strength, density and mineralogy. The statistics correspond to the percentage length of river reach for each different geological property encountered.
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