Is the data beneath your pollution and flood models going stagnant?

You’ve built robust models to understand pollution, flooding and environmental risk, with Ordnance Survey data providing much of the geographic context behind them. Specifically, OS MasterMap Water Network Layer has likely sat somewhere within those workflows.

As that dataset recently reached end of life, your team may already have migrated, or be planning the transition, to the OS NGD Water Network theme. Either way, it’s an exciting opportunity to gain more value from OS data.

OS MasterMap Water Network Layer is becoming OS NGD Water Network

OS NGD Water Network is similar to the Water Network Layer in many ways and retains the Water Link and Water Node geometries. However, these now have tonnes more information attached to them.

OS NGD Water Network adds more detailed watercourse classifications, inland and tidal distinctions, and information about whether sections run through culverts, tunnels or natural underground passages. It also provides improved average, minimum and maximum width information, more detailed naming, and a new Water Link Set feature that supplies a single geometry for a complete named watercourse.

Ordnance Survey National Geographic Database gives you far more value

While that sums up the improvements in the dataset itself, OS NGD actually unlocks far more value than you’ve ever had before. It gives you…

More accessibility: OS NGD data can be accessed through traditional downloads or via APIs. APIs allow teams to create repeatable data-retrieval processes, reduce manual file handling, and make current OS information available to multiple systems and workflows.

More flexibility: Custom areas let the data supply match the geography your model needs, rather than being constrained by national coverage or fixed tile boundaries. This avoids downloading and processing large areas that aren’t relevant to your work, which saves you time and money.

More choice: Recipes in OS NGD allow teams to select the required feature types across multiple themes. For example, you can combine elements of OS NGD Water Network with bits from Water Features rather than having to buy both themes. This means the data supply can be built around the model itself, rather than shaped by traditional product groupings.

More granularity: Not every part of a model requires the same level of detail. Feature-level selection lets teams apply detailed information in priority areas while retaining more basic context elsewhere. For example, if you need to trace the watercourse feeding a particular site, you can select that feature alone, without the surrounding details you don’t need.

Make the migration an opportunity

Replacing an end-of-life dataset prevents models from becoming dependent on increasingly outdated information. However, simply recreating the previous data supply could leave much of OS NGD’s additional value unused.

OS NGD provides an opportunity to give you richer information, simpler data processes and a supply designed around what you genuinely need.