A new Land Use Analysis Taskforce should be established to support decisions about how land in the UK is used, according to a new report from the Geospatial Commission.

The report, published today, recommends that government policies related to using land should be supported by a new taskforce and cutting edge data analysis.

Recognising land use pressure as a cross-cutting national challenge, the Geospatial Commission initiated the National Land Data Programme (NLDP), which has explored key land use challenges and demonstrated where innovative data analysis and evidence can support better land use decisions.

The new report sets out recommendations for how the UK’s data capabilities can be enhanced to support land use decision making, with a more integrated understanding of urban and rural needs.

The new taskforce would assess the potential to reconcile competing demands for how we use our land to meet national priorities - such as those relating to infrastructure, housing, agriculture and the environment - with the land available in the UK.

The report sets out how better data can be used to drive land-use decisions that drive growth, while also protecting the environment, adapting to climate change and achieving net zero emissions.

The report has four recommendations:

• Establish a Land Use Analysis Taskforce to bring together cutting edge data and scientific expertise to assess competing land use pressures, ensuring national priorities are delivered within the land available in the UK
• Champion market innovations that help visualise and deliver how we can achieve better land use decisions
• Strengthen the links between land use policy design, academic research and industry practice
• Develop a standard approach to classifying key land use data to improve how we can link data about land

The report highlights that land use is fundamentally a spatial challenge. Some land cannot be used for multiple purposes. However, there are significant opportunities for multifunctional land use (such as rooftop solar energy). The report considers these opportunities across six sectors:

• energy
• housing
• biodiversity
• food
• water
• transport

In a dedicated section on water, the report says that the combination of climate change induced changes to the water cycle, resulting in extreme weather, such as droughts and flooding, with unsustainable development and high levels of water leakage, is placing stress on the UK’s ability to manage water supply, water quality and flood risk.

“Analysing water plans in parallel is difficult and may lead to "contrary action, inefficiencies and unintended consequences"

According to the report, several water management plans are produced at different scales and for different purposes across the UK, including regional water, flood risk, drainage and wastewater management, water resources management and river basin management plans.

However, the report warns:

“Analysing these plans in parallel is difficult and may lead to contrary action, inefficiencies and unintended consequences. Better integration of catchment information and management plans could help provide a more informed assessment of the impacts of each catchment's water resources, pollution and management on one another.”

It also suggests there is a lack of understanding about the areas with opportunities for multifunctional land use where investment aimed at flood prevention, nature restoration and agriculture to improve nutrient and water neutrality could be aligned to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

“Multifunctional water management tools, that help develop a shared picture of our water system across the public agencies and companies which manage our water system,could help decision makers understand interdependencies and reduce the risks of unintended consequences of water management solutions that have land use implications,” the report says.

Water use - lack of good data in three key areas

It also says that at currently, the UK generally lacks good data on:

• Water resource availability: The Environment Agency provides nationally consistent and openly available data, which is useful for getting a broad understanding of water resource availability, however it has not been updated since 2015 and it is modelled, not measured, data.
• Water quality: Water Framework Directive (WFD) data has not been updated since 2021 due to the discontinuation of WFD monitoring. Stakeholders have questioned the geographical coverage that Environment Agency monitoring sites provide and why some environmentally important areas are not routinely monitored.
• Non-public water abstraction: Statistics on the abstraction of water is provided using the abstraction rates by licence holders in England. This considers abstraction for electricity, agricultural, public water and private water supply. However, licences are only for more than 20 cubic metres per day and the figures are not reported frequently.

The recommendations are based on evidence from academic and industry experts and findings from NLDP’s regional pilots in Devon, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Newcastle and Northern Ireland.

Click here to download the report in full