Reports, articles and policy notes

Making Socio-Ecological Art and Science Collaboration Work: A Guide

Our Changing Treescapes project team have released a new guide, Making Socio-Ecological Art and Science Collaboration Work. The guide provides invaluable advice on how artists and arts-based researchers can work alongside natural and social scientists to develop inclusive environmental research projects. It details practical steps for finding and commissioning artists who have the appropriate skill sets and expertise, while also addressing concerns within the wider research community that bringing an arts perspective into applied research can be challenging.

Deben Soundings

The Imagining the measure of change team have released a new report on their Deben Soundings project. The report details the work that has been undertaken during the project by visual artist Simon Read and coastal scientist Helene Burningham. Working together with the Deben Estuary Partnership (DEP), they have established an integrated research network focused on the management of the Deben estuary landscape.

New report on land use partnerships for addressing climate change

A report on land use partnerships for addressing climate change has been published by Leo Peskett. The report explores how existing land use partnerships work and the learning they provide for how Regional Land Use Partnerships (RLUPs) might be designed to meet their goals.

The full paper can be accessed at the link below.

Making Landscape Decisions to Meet Net Zero Carbon

A new report by the Landscape Decisions Programme Coordination Team (PCT) sets out how landscapes can absorb the impact of zero-carbon policies. The report offers key recommendations to address some of the contradictions of the current net zero carbon strategy; the need to invest in transdisciplinary approaches for landscape management decisions; ensure the right ecosystem is promoted in the right place, with no single land-use solution prioritised above others; and increase local and devolved decision-making capabilities.

Unlocking Landscapes: History, Culture and Sensory Diversity in Landscape Use and Decision Making Interim Report – June 2021

This interim report shares how the Unlocking Landscapes project team have started to explore opportunities to complement UK landscape management and decision-making approaches that foreground biodiversity with a focus on human diversity in spite of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Detailing a range of activities to encourage critical and cross-disciplinary
discussion around the complex ways in which landscapes become meaningful to individuals and groups through their senses, personal memories and collective histories, and sharing plans for the next steps, this report will undoubtedly be helpful for everyone seeking to overcome the problems of the past year and a half.

Heritage responds – Taking positive action on climate change

Climate change could have devastating consequences for the historic environment. In this report, which was developed with the support of the Landscape Futures and the Challenge of Change project, representatives from the heritage sector set out a roadmap for taking positive action on climate change. All of the case studies that are featured in the report are available online.

Using peatland surface motion (bog breathing) to monitor Peatland Action sites

Members of the StAMP project have helped put together a new NatureScot Research Report that demonstrates how satellite technology can be used to track the way bogs ‘breathe’. This approach can provide a better indication of the condition of peatland and restoration progress. The report was produced by a collaboration between NatureScot, the University of the Highlands and Islands, the University of Nottingham, and Forestry and Land Scotland.

Landscapes of the Mind – Visual Matrix Summaries

At the heart of the Landscapes of the Mind project is a network of artists and researchers working across disciplines and the idea of exploring the different ways we express our connection with landscape, sharing how our different perspectives may contribute to discussions around landscape conservation and adaptation to changing culture, communities and societal needs.

Co-creating artworks with network participants that embrace our subjectivity about landscape and gives time to think and reflect on varying perspectives. In an attempt to flourish under Covid restrictions the team adapted the visual-matrix – a psycho-social method with arts practice, to engage virtually. This report summarises VM1 themed around Landscape and Water and VM2 Landscape and Time.

Landscapes 2030 workshops January 2021 – Summary Report

In January 2021 the Landscape Decisions Programme Coordination Team hosted a workshop looking forwards a decade with a focus on stakeholder evidence and research needs. Stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds and organisations took part in 3 short virtual workshops. The Summary Report can be accessed here.

Where is the Wild Workshops report from the Tipping Points project

This report details a series of workshops run but the LDP ‘Tipping Points‘ project that highlighted creative reflections on “the wild”, and all of its implications for human and nonhuman life in three different environments in the north of England

Report of Landscape Decisions Programme Network-wide event Summer 2020

2020 brought some unexpected new challenges to the world, in the shape of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), or Covid as it soon came to be known. The Landscape Decisions Programme Network decided to meet these head on by moving our planned Programme-wide event online.

You can download the report of that event here.

Review and Comparison of Models used for Land Allocation and Nature Valuation

This report by Landscape Decisions’ researchers reviews existing land allocation models and their capability to meet the requirements of key stakeholders. The work was funded by the Landscape Decisions Programme. The Valuing Nature Programme provided some additional support in the first phase of the research.