Multifunctional Landscapes: Informing a Long-term Vision for Managing the UK’s Land

  • Commissioner: The Royal Society, London
  • Conducted by: Chair: Sir Charles Godfray FRS, University of Oxford Steering group: Sir Ian Boyd FRS, University of St Andrews; Professor Allan Buckwell, IEEP; Judy Ling Wong CBE, Black Environment Network; Dame Fiona Reynolds FBA, National Trust; Dr Jacqueline Rosette, Swansea University; Professor Peter Smith FRS, University of Aberdeen; John Varley OBE, Clinton Devon Estates; Barbara Young, Woodland Trust;
  • Year: 2023
  • Countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales
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The report recommends a multifunctional approach to land use decision-making, emphasising the need for research and innovation to improve sustainable productivity across all land-based outputs. It calls for new infrastructure to support skills and training for land managers, a data science-driven approach to build a robust evidence base, and the development of coordinated national land use frameworks to ensure policy coherence across the UK.

The following recommendations are aimed at both increasing, and enhancing access to, science and innovation relevant to land use and supporting decision-making processes to help meet the challenges of the 21st Century.

Recommendations for policy implementation

  1. Land use decision-making needs to embrace a multifunctional approach that considers multiple market and non-market land-based outputs.
  2. Research and innovation is needed to improve the sustainable productivity of all land-based outputs.
  3. New infrastructure will be needed to provide skills, training and advice for land managers to enable them to adapt their businesses and thrive on delivering multiple outputs from their land.
  4. A novel data science-driven approach is needed to develop a high-quality common evidence base to underpin land use decisions.
  5. The UK countries should develop and coordinate spatially explicit national land use frameworks to ensure coherence across different areas of land use policy and between national and local scales

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Multifunctional Landscapes: Informing a Long-term Vision for Managing the UK’s Land