The evidence provided here brings together current initiatives that use nationally available data for monitoring landscape change with projects that provide contextual analysis of England’s landscapes. For example, the National Character Area profiles are a body of evidence describing the distinctiveness, opportunities and needs associated with our landscapes. The respective landscape monitoring projects indicate where and how landscapes are changing and inform the Environmental Improvement Plan. It is intended that the evidence also helps inform other national monitoring initiatives and provide context for local research and monitoring.
The Environmental Indicator Framework (EIF) is a comprehensive set of indicators describing environmental change that relates to the 10 goals within the Environmental Improvement Plan. The EIF contains 66 indicators, arranged into 10 broad themes including Goal 10: Access to Nature (and it’s associated landscape character, heritage and natural beauty). The indicators are extensive; they cover natural capital assets (for example, land, freshwater, air and seas) and together they show the condition of these assets, the pressures acting upon them and the provision of services or benefits they provide.
Indicator G1 is a measure of progress towards meeting the overall aim of ‘enhancing beauty’ as part of Goal 10 in the Environmental Improvement Plan. The measure takes into account a range of natural, cultural and perceptual factors that provide a rounded insight into where and how landscape character is changing. It also monitors the extent to which positive changes are contributing to objectives that lead to a range of landscape benefits including enhanced beauty. Indicator G1 currently includes reporting for the period between 2015-2025.
The NCA Profiles each contain a body of integrated environmental evidence that underpin the NCA Framework of 159 areas of distinct character mapped in England. The profiles aim to influence positive landscape change by helping to inform appropriate decision-making. They include landscape objectives and opportunities as a core element and therefore provide a basis for evaluating the direction of trends in changes to landscape character. In this way the NCA Framework underpins much of our landscape monitoring undertaken at a national scale. The NCA profiles have been refreshed in 2024 and placed on a digital platform.
As an integral part of understanding changes in landscape character it is important to gather evidence of how people perceive landscape and change. For example, at the national scale, questions on the public perceptions of green and natural spaces across different landscapes are of interest. Some analysis of People and Nature Survey (PANS) data is available here for 2020-2023. New PANS questions on landscape character and change have been introduced from April 2024 to collect new data.
The New Agricultural Landscapes (NAL) programme has monitored landscape change since the early 1970s. The then Countryside Commission established the project, responding to growing concerns about intensive farming on the environment. The programme seeks to explore how agricultural improvement can be achieved effectively, but ‘in such a way that creates new landscapes no less interesting than those destroyed in the process’.