Land use and the state of the natural environment

Land use and land cover are important determinants of the state of the natural environment. As a result, measures of land use and land cover change have been widely used as indicators of environmental condition and quality. This review explores the range of measures that have been applied in the UK at national, regional and local scales, and their sensitivity to particular drivers of change. The extent to which these indicators are important properties in themselves or are surrogates for wider environmental qualities is considered.The discussion focuses on the evolving frameworks used to analyse the relationships between land use and the state of the natural environment. The limitations and strengths of the DPSIR reporting and analytical framework are explored. Recent approaches to the assessment of the impacts of future land use change on the natural environment using model-based scenario methods are examined, and the need to develop new types of aggregate measure of land use function is identified. There is also a pressing need to link assessments of trends to the analysis of sustainability thresholds or limits. It is concluded that the concept of a socio-ecological system offers a more fruitful approach to the analysis of the relationships between land use and the state of the natural environment than the simplistic cause–effect models that have been used in the past.