Projects

Alongside the LUNZ Hub, UKRI is funding five separate transdisciplinary research consortia outlined below, that will work to build the UK’s capacity and capability for transforming land use in the pursuit of net zero while meeting other environmental and societal goals.

These projects will inform policy on the same three themes as the LUNZ Hub: soil health and carbon dynamics; agricultural systems; and land use change. A total of £14 million has been made available for these projects with each one allocated up to £4.5million. The LUNZ Hub will work closely with the following teams to disseminate and integrate the research they produce.

1. LUNZ Grasslands

Grassland Resilience for Net Zero: Sustainable practices for shaping the future of UK land use

Temporary and permanent grasslands cover >70% of UK agricultural land and provide a vital natural asset for achieving national and international climate, nature, and biodiversity targets, whilst providing feed for ruminants that convert human-inedible forage into nutrient-dense food. Optimising grassland use (e.g. through upland grazing, low-carbon and methane-mitigating forages, multispecies legume-rich pastures, silvopasture, agroforestry, biomass production, woodland establishment) could help the UK realise its mitigation potential whilst saving >£1.6billion/year. LUNZ Grasslands will provide innovation assessments, co-creation of adoption pathways and policy-making solutions (assessed via Life Cycle Assessments, Global Farm Metric, experimental trials, land-use scenario modelling, stakeholder engagement) and will embrace both unique and common characteristics in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland to develop devolved policies that will target public goods and regulatory mechanisms, protect natural and cultural heritage; and support the Net-Zero Growth Plan. LUNZ Grasslands will do this by bringing together leading innovators in transdisciplinary research on sustainable and resilient livestock systems, to address the transformation of UK grasslands for net zero whilst also improving soil health, biodiversity, and the economy.

Led by: Angelina Sanderson Bellamy (UWE), Laurence Smith, Sokratis Stergiadis, and Tom Staton (University of Reading), Christine Watson, Davy McCracken, John Holland, Nicola Lambe, Alistair McVittie, Claire Morgan-Davies, and Kairsty Topp (SRUC), Katerina Theodoridou and Caroline Meharg (Queens University Belfast), Pippa Nicholas-Davies, Simon Moakes, and Christina Marley (Aberystwyth), and Lisa Norton (UKCEH).

Contact: [email protected]

2. LUNZ OpenLAND

Creating a validated, spatially explicit integrated modelling framework to evaluate potential net zero pathways across the UK

OpenLAND will provide decision makers with the insights urgently needed to put the UK on a path to deliver net zero emissions by 2050, while also delivering climate resilient soil health, food security, and biodiversity net-gain. We will identify spatially explicit intervention scenarios for land uses that exploit synergies between climate mitigation, adaptation, and biodiversity. We will create a validated, UK-wide, spatially explicit integrated modelling framework, OpenLAND, to evaluate potential net zero pathways.  OpenLAND will quantify the implications of land interventions on soil carbon and health, biodiversity, agriculture, and flood risk, while exploring the synergies and trade-offs between interventions. To extend the capability of OpenCLIM (developed under previous UKRI funding) we will develop and validate a novel framework for the effective land use interventions upon carbon storage, particularly focusing on soil carbon and soil health evaluation. This will be achieved by ground truthing soil carbon and soil health using empirical data, and by developing and trialling robotic monitoring for measuring and verifying soil carbon and health.  This will allow data relating to soil carbon and long-term carbon storage potential to feed into OpenLAND to give real world evaluation of below-ground carbon dynamics under land-use intervention scenarios. It will also enable soil microbiome data, as a qualifier of soil health, to be reconciled with OpenCLIM’s projections for the terrestrial biosphere. The project will culminate in the identification of new, spatially explicit, intervention scenarios for land use interventions exploiting synergies and minimising trade-offs.

Led by: Rachel Warren, Brian Reid, and Adam Smith (UEA), Jeff Price, Nem Vaughan, Andrew Lovett, Katie Jenkins, Helen He, Asher Minns, and Simon Butler (UEA/Tyndall Centre), Will Blake, Claire Kelly, and Jennifer Rowntree (University of Plymouth), Paul Sayers (Sayers & Partners), Chris Quince (The Earlham Institute), Bethan Perkins (Science and Technology Facilities Council), Richard Pywell and John Redhead (UKCEH), Craig Robson and Alistair Ford (Newcastle University), Falk Hilderbrand (The Quadram Institute), James Pearce-Higgins (The British Trust for Ornithology), Jason Lowe (University of Leeds), and Tom Finch (RSPB).

Contact: [email protected]

3. LUNZ Footprint

2050 Greenhouse Gas Accounting Living Lab

To enable the change at the UK scale required, we need to evaluate and converge accounting approaches, build understanding about the optimal use of these tools, and minimise negative social impacts. This requires a transdisciplinary approach that empowers real-life, multi-stakeholder user engagement, and engenders co-design. Hence, building on recent positive experiences at a regional level, we will establish a pan-UK Living Lab called the “To Zero Fifty (2050)” with a project aim to develop and evaluate a scalable auditable farm- and food-level GHG accounting framework for UK land use to sustainably reduce GHG emissions. We will use the “To Zero Fifty” Living Lab to engage policy, practitioner, value chain, and public stakeholders on a net zero journey, including comparing GHG calculators, not just in terms of functionality as other research has done, but in terms of: building capacity and net zero literacy, testing sequestration predictions, assessing validation methods and exploring the governance and equitability implications of scaling. In summary, we aim to provide evidence about the means for driving effective and informed usage of GHG accounting tools to inform policy and help achieve a net zero transition.

For more information, please follow this link to the University of Gloucestershire press release.

Led by: Julie Ingram (University of Gloucestershire), Paul Burgess and Lynda Deeks (Cranfield University), Kairsty Topp (SRUC), Sylvia Vetter (University of Aberdeen), Simon Thelwall (Harper Adams University), Liz Bowles (Farm Carbon Toolkit), Rachel Ramsey (Agrecalc), Emily Durrant (Cool Farm Tool), and Jon Dearsley (Savills).

Contact: [email protected]

4. LUNZ RESPECT

Rapid Engagement with Stressed Peatland Environments and Communities in Transformation

Peatlands are one of the world’s most important habitats and the largest terrestrial carbon store. However, 80% of UK peatlands are damaged and deteriorating, meaning they are often a carbon source rather than sink. Rapid Engagement with Stressed Peatland Environments and Communities in Transformation (RESPECT) will produce data, methods, landholder tools and proposals for governance reforms to change agricultural practices on peatland and contribute to the UK’s net zero target. RESPECT will achieve this by collating data through novel interdisciplinary collection, modelling and engagement methods. These data will establish the capacity of land and land users to contribute to the net zero target as well as generate other social and environmental co-benefits, balanced against conflicting land use demands, within the context of climate change. Informed by this baseline data, RESPECT will produce the Peatland Triage Tool (PTT), providing decision-support for landowners, land managers, farmers and crofters (collectively ‘landholders’) seeking to undertake peatland restoration. Governance reforms will be proposed to scaffold the social innovations necessary for transformative change. Two case study regions – the Forth and Humber Catchments in Scotland and England – will be investigated in-depth, where tensions exist between food production, historic environment preservation, carbon sequestration and ecological restoration.

Led by: Jill Robbie, Adrian Bass, Deborah Dixon, Jiren Xu, Katherine Simpson, Larissa Naylor, Nick Hanley, and Nicki Whitehouse (University of Glasgow), Amy Proctor (Newcastle University), Graham Ferrier and Jane Bunting (University of Hull), and Jens-Arne Subke (University of Stirling).

Contact: [email protected]

5. LUNZ JUSTLANZ

Just transformation of food-farming systems: reconciling net zero and other land-use ambitions

JUSTLANZ aims to develop transformative pathways for a just transition to net zero for the UK food- farming sector, considering local, regional and national priorities. Working with livestock farmers and their communities, the food-farming sector, policy makers, academics and conservation organisations, JUSTLANZ integrates different knowledges, views and values to co-design, and develop innovative and sustainable solutions and pathways in four UK pastoral landscapes. Ultimately, JUSTLANZ tests how a transdisciplinary, holistic research approach can realise sustainable transitions. Our research explores how to achieve Net Zero justly, whilst achieving and balancing priorities such as food production, biodiversity restoration and people’s needs in agricultural landscapes. The project combines policy-driven land use scenario models, climate data and future visions from food- farming communities to co-create “preferred” scenarios that attempt to reconcile land-use demands. We will examine the impact of different scenarios on carbon stocks and greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural productivity, biodiversity and justice. Finally, transformative pathways towards these “preferred” futures will be co-developed with food-farming communities and other stakeholders, to ensure solutions can effect change throughout the whole UK food-farming system. JUSTLANZ will transform current land-use scientific knowledge through innovative research focused on tackling real-world societal challenges, laying the foundations for broader, just and sustained transformative change in all four UK nations.

Led by: Richard Bradbury, Joelene Hughes, Antonia Eastwood, Tom Finch, and Sean Woods (RSPB), Robin Pakeman, Mike Rivington, Mohamed Jabloun, Simone Piras, and Simone Martino (James Hutton Institute), Julia Martin-Ortega, Paula Novo, David Williams, and George Holmes (University of Leeds), Adam Pellegrini (University of Cambridge), Moira Gallagher and David Brown (SRUC Innovation Ltd), Chris Harris (Living Levels Partnership), Jacqueline Hannam, (Cranfield University) and Amanda Gallacher and Mandy Lowe (FWAG-SW).

Contact: [email protected]