Defra/Natural England (1972 – ongoing)
Read the full Agricultural Landscapes: 33 years of change report.
Read the New Agricultural Landscapes: 44 years of change overview report.
The New Agricultural Landscapes (NAL) programme has been running since 1972, originally focussing on seven study areas to monitor landscape change at 11-year intervals. The project was initially established by the Countryside Commission, in response to growing concerns about the impact of intensive farming on the natural environment. The most recent 2016 cycle laid down a new baseline for three more study areas, to represent all six Agricultural Landscape Types (ALTs) found in England.
A comprehensive photographic record spanning four decades is a major feature of the project. The same viewpoints are re-visited in each cycle to create a catalogue of consistent landscape photography and to document changes over time. The visual nature of the reports make them accessible and engaging to a wider range of audiences, including the local communities and general public.
The programme‘s initial aims were to explore how ‘agricultural improvement’ could be achieved, but ‘in such a way that creates new landscapes no less interesting than those destroyed in the process’. This long-term monitoring has subsequently evolved to provide evidence and lessons of how different policies have impacted the farmed landscape and (importantly) to help inform current priorities and interventions.
One major focus, new to the 2016 cycle, was the role of agri-environment schemes in landscape change. Features within the photographs that were under Environmental Stewardship schemes were identified, and a judgement made on the effect these were having on landscape character. It was generally concluded that these interventions were having a positive effect on the landscape. The findings contributed to a wider suite of research led by Defra and Natural England, to monitor the outcomes of Environmental Stewardship and better target future schemes.
Additional evolutions in the latest cycle included the introduction of new techniques in landscape monitoring and assessment. These included the use of GPS to accurately site and record location and direction of view for ease in future cycles, interactive mapping which contained all previous and current photos, and electronic survey forms. These additions will assist the replicability of the project outputs going forward.
Key Findings:
The most recent iteration of this study undertaken in 2016 (New Agricultural Landscapes, 2016: 44 Years of Change – pending publication) identified high-level trends across the NAL study areas and provided detailed analyses within each NAL. Common trends observed across the various landscapes included: