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 25 Year Environment Plan (and Environmental Improvement Plan, 2023). It is intended that the evidence also helps inform other national monitoring initiatives and provide context for local research and monitoring.
The Outcome Indicator Framework is a comprehensive set of indicators describing environmental change that relates to the 10 goals within the 25 Year Environment Plan (revised in 2023 with the publication of the Environmental Improvement Plan). The framework contains 66 indicators, arranged into 10 broad themes (including Goal 10: Enhancing beauty, heritage and engagement with the natural environment). 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 25 Year Environment 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 has interim status (with scope for further development) and includes results for the baseline assessment 2015-2019.
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.
This atlas covers the 159 NCAs in England and includes indicators that relate to the influence on landscape character of landscape management and spatial planning. It features an interactive dashboard showing the results of landscape monitoring that can be searched by NCA or by landscape change theme, and covers the period 2015-2019. Protected landscapes boundaries can be added for context and additional insight.
This forms supporting evidence building towards the G1a Atlas and is underpinned by the Landscape Change Database.
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’.