UXO studies for England Ecosystem Survey monads

UK Government has set world-leading ambition on protecting our natural assets, internationally through the Convention of Biodiversity and domestically via the ground-breaking 25 Year Environment Plan. Intrinsically linked to the successful delivery of Net Zero, protecting our environmental services has never been more vital. Achieving these goals is underpinned by the provision of systematic and robust evidence. For the first-time, Defra are developing a programme to deliver up-to-date, UK-wide environmental data to allow for agile policymaking grounded in the best available evidence - to truly understand where we are and where we need to get to.

The Natural Capital & Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) 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.

One component of NCEA is the England Ecosystem Survey (EES) which aims to assess the current state of vegetation, habitats, landscapes and soils in England and to monitor long-term changes. Unexploded ordnance (UXO) risk assessment studies will be used to ensure the safety of all surveyors on each EES monad when carrying out soil surveys.