Land use decision research & guidance

The Catchment Funding Team is part of the Future Funding Directorate within the Environment Agency. We develop and deliver innovative funding solutions that will enable us to influence policy to more effectively address our environmental challenges; we seek to embed these new ways of working throughout the EA.

We are participating in a joint Shared Outcomes Fund project, called Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for Climate Change at the Landscape Scale. This project led by Natural England, Environment Agency, RBG Kew

and the Forestry Commission will develop effective ways to integrate these NbS with other land

management objectives, working closely with local partners and stakeholders in new pilot study areas.

Research and monitoring to understand the potential of these habitats will be integral to the project, including innovative studies at Wakehurst, Kew's wild botanic garden, on the role of biodiversity in sequestering carbon. New 'blended' funding models for habitat restoration, to allow public and private finance to support common aims and deliver effective outcomes will be developed and the economic and social impact of the actions will be assessed.

The project will test the efficacy of different nature-based solutions for nature and climate recovery and provide a pathway to large-scale implementation. It will lead to new approaches, resources, and tools to support effective targeting of nature-based solutions in diverse landscapes and complementing other work to inform the design of future policies and funding schemes.

For this piece of work the Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change programme requires an expert to:

• Collect and categorise the key decisions that are expected to be made during a landscape restoration project to deliver multiple benefits

• Work with the pilot projects, where possible, to understand how they intend to approach such decisions

• Identify available tools and resources (and potential gaps) through literature review and working with existing information to be provided by the EA and Defra

• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches of pilot projects and those contained in the literature

• Produce user friendly guidance document on this research