Accounting for Nature: Assessing habitats in the UK countryside
9.   Countryside Change: Developing an Integrated View

Developing the landscape view

9.36 This chapter presents a preliminary view of the results of CS2000 in terms of the major Environmental Zones that make up England and Wales, and Scotland. This type of analysis merits further work both within the framework of the Zones and also using other regional breakdowns and landscape character assessments. Zonal ‘land cover accounts’ will be produced, which will provide a balance sheet for Broad Habitats and the flows between habitats in each Zone. The Countryside Information System (CIS) enables CS2000 and NICS2000 data to be estimated for any geographical area in the UK, though most estimates will only be reliable for relatively large areas.

9.37 The availability of a field-by-field map of Broad Habitats from Land Cover Map 2000 will offer new opportunities for regional and local assessments, including aspects of landscape structure and pattern which cannot be assessed at the scale of individual 1 km squares used in the field survey. It will enable basic stock data to be constructed at local scales. An example of the type of output that will be available is shown in Figure 9.10. The data from the satellite land cover will be calibrated with the field survey so that it will be possible to check the comparative accuracy of the two surveys. It will also enable the detailed ecological characteristics of the land, as viewed from space, to be determined.

Figure 9.10.

[Click on the image to see a larger version]

A simulated perspective view, made by overlaying Land Cover Map 2000 onto a digital terrain model, showing the North York Moors from Kirkbymoorside northwards over Rudland Rigg. The moors with Dwarf Shrub Heath (mauve), in places burnt to encourage new growth (pink), are deeply cut by valleys with Acid Grassland (pale green), Bracken (dull orange) and Broadleaved woodlands (red) on valley sides with Improved Grasslands (green) in the valley bottoms.