structure of Joined up Landscapes
Our Approach
Joined Up Landscapes takes a transdisciplinary approach to research that combined a wide range of academic disciplines with practical action. We collaborate with farmers, land managers, non-govenrnmental organisations, and policymakers to ensure that our research can positively impact policy and practice. We are committed to ensuring that our research contributes to land and food futures that are sustainable, resilient, and equitable.
Work Package 1: Review of Nature-based Solutions
WP1 seeks to supply comprehensive information about Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to overcome fragmented and siloed decisions and implementation. To achieve this goal, we will conduct a review of academic literature on NbS in the United Kingdom that support food system outcomes, alongside co-benefits, such as multifunctional land use and climate change adaptation. Data sourced from WP1 will also feed into other WPs in the project.
Work Package 2: Rapid Qualitative Assessment of Nature-based Solutions
We are conducting two qualitative research methods (Rapid Qualitative Analysis and Deliberative Prioritisation Workshops) with stakeholders from across the agricultural system including those who finance, promote and implement Nature-based Solutions. We want to understand their views and engagement with Nature-based solutions (NbS), and the conditions (resources, policies, support) required to enable NbS policy to be implemented successfully
Work Package 3: Test and Trial
This work package focuses on understanding, learning from, and supporting the implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in three distinct sites. Through partnerships with South East Rivers Trust, Wye and Usk Foundation, and North Essex Farm Cluster, three NbS interventions taking place on farms in Kent, Herefordshire and Essex have been identified as central to this work package. The management and governance of each of these NbS interventions will be explored qualitatively, in order to capture the complex decisions, strategies and processes that underpin the planning, delivery and ongoing management and impacts of such interventions.
Work Package 4: System Dynamics Modelling
WP4 will develop a system dynamics model, integrated with the Met Office JULES land surface model and KIT’s CRAFTY GB land use decision making model, for evaluating NbS scalability and resilience in the UK context. This model will provide spatially explicit, data-driven insights into the barriers, enablers and impacts of NbS under different warming scenarios.
Work Package 5: Reflective Capacity Building, Pedagogy, and Knowledge Exchange
Work Package 5 aims to develop new theories, approaches, and methods for effectively communicating about Nature-based solutions to farmers and land managers, students, policymakers, and the wider public. Our work will include creative writing, game design, pedagogical development, and a range of public events and knowledge sharing activities.
JUL is part of the Maximising UK Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) programme and MACC Hub, jointly funded by UKRI (NERC) and Defra.
