Road verge extent and habitat composition across Great Britain

There is growing societal and scientific interest in enhancing road verges for nature the environment. This partly because they are estimated to cover large areas some regions. Yet, our knowledge, there has been no quantitative assessment of national verge extent, or habitats encompass. We present a novel method characterising classifying remotely. use this evaluate extent habitat composition across Great Britain, identify opportunities improving stratified random sampling freely-available maps combined with satellite (Google Earth) ground-level imagery Street View). Overall, we estimate that 2,579 km2 (2,149-3,010 km2) equivalent 1.2% land area, which 707 (27.47%) short, frequently-mown grassland, 1,062 (40.87%) regular 480 (18.73%) woodland, 272 (10.66%) scrub. By comparison, 3,694 hard surfaces 1.8% land. Only 27% grassland contained trees, indicating potential planting trees shrubs provide environmental benefits. Our findings suggest significant enhance (i) along major roads, these constitute disproportionately area have widest verges, (ii) example by, where appropriate, reducing mowing frequencies and/or trees. can be used, adapted further developed by others, assess other regions, greater detail.