England Ecosystem Surveys: Land Access and Permission, Contact and Data Gathering Process

The NCEA (Natural Capital & Ecosystem Assessment) Programme is a transformative programme to understand the extent, condition and change over time of environmental assets across England's land and water environments, supporting the government's ambition to improve the environment within a generation.

An element of the NCEA programme is the England Ecosystem Survey (EES) which is a new method of collecting environmental data. The aim of the EES is to get a true understanding of the condition of England's terrestrial environment, and to do this we need to identify landowners and land users, and secure land access permission to carry out surveys on their land. The surveys will collect data relating to habitats, vegetation, soil, peat and landscape, and support Natural England's earth observation programme.

Phase 1 is expected to be completed by mid-October 2022 and will focus on the 2023 survey site permissions. Soil sampling on 100 sites is to be undertaken late in 2022 and into 2023 (Oct-March). These 100 sites are included in the 400 2023 sample and are not additional.

Phase 2 will focus on the 2024 site permissions (750) and preparation for future survey years. Phase 2 will end on the 31 March 2023.

Aim

To contact landowners and liaise with land managers to secure permission for access for the England Ecosystem Survey (EES). Approximately 1700 ((stratified) individual 1km2 areas (monads) have been pre-selected from across England for years 1 and 2 of the survey. The 2023 EES requires owners of land, within each of these monads, to be identified and contacted and permission requested and secured to access to their land. 400 monads in proportions representative of the sampling strategy, are required for survey in 2023 and 750 are required for survey in 2024. If the level of permission is sufficient there is a desire to carry out soil sampling on 100 sites in late 2022.

See specification for more information.

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