The Land Use Framework for England - How can it deliver for soils?

A consultation on the Land Use Framework for England is due for publication any day now. Its aim is to provide a vision of how the government will balance all the multiple objectives for land use in England, including agriculture, the environment, energy, net zero, and climate adaptation.

The scope and ambition of the Framework has evolved over time, but the hope is that it will provide a platform for consistent, joined-up thinking both across and within government departments – a mechanism for strategic, science-based, practical decision making that will cascade through different policies – regulations, Environmental Land Management, nature markets, bioenergy production etc.

Soils epitomise the challenges of multifunctional land use. As with land, we have finite soil, and finite high quality soil. But all soils can provide critical services and are subject to a variety of threats from both inappropriate land use and land management decisions. They would benefit from a national vision but are highly regional, with their capabilities and limitations tied into local climate, landscape and cultural circumstances. And they are of interest to a wide and growing list of stakeholders from a range of sectors, all of whom recognise soil’s importance but have different expectations of it and use different metrics and terminology to define it.

Resolving this multi-dimensional jigsaw is a significant challenge, as a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate. This highlights the value of the ‘framework’ approach as a unifying tool that can prioritise and reconcile the different interest groups, soil types, scales and outcomes simultaneously.

The process of developing the Framework will likely highlight the current opportunities and gaps in soil policy ‘infrastructure’ – many of which are in development and will likely emerge during the Framework’s adoption. The individual components include a universal indicator of soil health, harmonised soil health benchmarks and metrics and a definition of ‘sustainably managed’ soils. To underpin all this, a universal soil type framework is needed to provide a harmonising structure for all the above and a common language for soils. Restricted access to the Soil Maps of England and Wales is a critical barrier too, hindering a more widespread use, understanding of and access to the information about the environmental capabilities, threats and geographical location of the country’s soil types – and critically its subsoils.

With that in mind, the following are some of the numerous ways that the Land Use Framework can deliver for soils and in turn, soils can deliver for the Land Use Framework:

• Embed a universal understanding of soil that can be applied to land-use decision-making on a variety of levels, based on the following:
  • The services soils deliver (food production, water storage and filtration, nutrient cycling, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage)
  • The threats they face under both inappropriate land use and management (erosion, carbon and biodiversity loss, compaction, sealing)
  • These 750+ soil types that inform the soil maps of England and Wales can be clustered into more manageable and user-friendly categories according to inherent vulnerabilities and threats (such as erodible soils or soils with low water holding capacity) and opportunities (such as soils with high carbon storage potential)
  • The difference between soil quality (its innate characteristics which do not change), and soil health (organic matter levels, biological activity, structure etc.) which define soil’s ability to carry out the services expected of it and which do change
  • The role of subsoils – critical for understanding soil’s overall health and the threats it faces and can pose (flooding, carbon release etc.)
• It should support the strategic alignment of different soils with the land use that is most appropriate for them and society (according to environmental and economic outcomes). This should include:
  • Peat soils – carbon storage (protect what we have, restore what is damaged)
  • Most fertile and resilient soils – food production
  • Less productive soils – afforestation, potential carbon uplift, water storage
  • Most erodible soils – nature restoration, avoidance of certain crops
  • Most damaged soils – restoration and protection
• This should reflect the impact and needs of different land uses on soil, and the trade-offs/ unintended consequences inherent in each. Growing bioenergy crops is a good example in that:
  • Planting certain bioenergy crops on erodible soils or slopes, or ploughing up grassland to plant such crops, can leave soil exposed and vulnerable to erosion, leading to water pollution and increased flood risk.
  • However, growing perennial biomass on poor agricultural land with depleted soils may improve soil quality and help sequester carbon.
• It should also reflect the link/disconnect between land use and land management specifically that land use decisions will not have the intended impact if they are not accompanied by the right land management approaches. The framework needs to be clearly integrated with the policy levers best placed to influence management – regulations, incentives, advice, and guidance.
• The Framework should embrace the emergence of nature markets and the need to align public policy with the growing investment in soil health/carbon from a number of sectors (food production, insurance, transport infrastructure, water companies). It should consider how different services are being valued, their wider impact (on food production and local communities) and how public and private money can best be aligned for maximum benefit.
• It should empower local engagement and decision-making around land use, especially where spatially targeted investment/enforcement/advice targeted to soils can contribute to specific, critical public goods and local goals (flood risk mitigation upstream of urban areas). It should foster improved collaboration between relevant actors at catchment level – local authorities, arm’s-length bodies, farm clusters, businesses.
• It should shine a light on the underlying policy infrastructure around soils, and identify where a strategic nationwide approach to soils is hindered by a:
  • Lack of decision-making infrastructure (universal maps, standards, benchmarks, baselines, metrics etc.)
  • Weaknesses/inaccuracies/misconceptions around existing tools (Agricultural Land Classification etc.) and models capable of predicting and building in change
  • Opportunities to capitalise on existing decision-making tools/technologies (ALERT)
  • Lack of standardisation between different tools/technologies that prevent their scaling up
• It should recognise the entirety of soil’s role in net zero – as both a source and a sink for greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Emissions are determined by differences in soil type, moisture, temperature, season, crop type, fertilisation, tillage intensity, and other agricultural practices.
• It should foster a more strategic national approach to soil-specific data, with universal standards and protocols, and the creation of a common evidence platform that would facilitate the incorporation of new data streams made available by technological advances. It should highlight the importance of privacy and secure storage of this data for farmers, especially when collected and shared with third parties, often through practices like encryption, access controls, and clear data usage agreements with data collectors or service providers.