Terms of Reference

The project created an evidence-based analysis to help policy makers gain a better understanding of whether existing land use patterns, practices and governance structures are fit for the future. It supports the development of forward-looking, integrated land use strategies.

The project explored how UK land use could change over the next 50 years and what society’s future needs and values might be. This helps to illuminate key short-term choices and responses which encourage valued and sustainable land use practices, which span the environmental, economic and social sectors.

The project combines futures thinking with scientific and other evidence drawn from a range of disciplines to:

1) Understand the nature of the "land system":

a. Create a shared understanding of the interconnected nature of natural and human processes affecting land use, at an appropriate geographical scale and time frame, and examine the relationship between rural and urban land use;

b. Explore the historical factors that have been influential in shaping land use patterns and practices;

2) Explore possible futures :

a. Identify key global and national factors driving changes in land use;

b. Using an appropriate time horizon, create plausible alternative futures which provide insight into what society may require from land in the future;

c. Explore how society’s values and beliefs in relation to land and land use may change in the future.

3) Identify key pressure points, challenges and opportunities:

a. Use the futures analysis to identify potential major "pressure points" and tensions in the land system over time, and if appropriate, spatially;

b. Highlight where governance arrangements and practices (or failures to act) could have significant long-term environmental, social or economic implications, lead to important irreversible unintended consequences, or limit opportunities to improve sustainably the land’s capacity to meet society’s potential future needs;

c. Assess whether current paradigms, institutional arrangements, assumptions and perceptions which underpin decisions about land use are likely to deliver valued and sustainable outcomes in the future.

4) Illuminate key short-term choices and responses which encourage valued and sustainable land use practices:

a. Examine mechanisms which influence how land is used to determine the extent to which they help weigh competing demands on land, produce equitable results, and promote potential synergies;

b. Identify important levers which influence behaviour, decision-making and the resolution of issues on which the UK has competence to act or can exert influence;

c. Conduct a thorough analysis of methods and approaches to valuing the goods and services land provides now and in the future.

5) Consider opportunities and risks:

a. Review practices and structures in selected other countries to gain insight into alternative approaches to tackling land use challenges;

b. Investigate selected sub-national land use initiatives in the UK to demonstrate the opportunities and/or the risks associated with implementing them.

The study covers land use across the UK. It was produced for the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, but the findings will be relevant to a wide range of interested parties, including the Devolved Administrations. The project covers water and air quality to the extent that both directly affect and are affected by land use. It will not focus on ’offshore‘ land uses.

The project does not produce a single "preferred vision" for land use, but creates an evidence-based analysis which will inform the development of more robust land use strategies. Its findings are not a statement of government policy on land use or land use initiatives.