Agricultural land use in the era of climate change: The challenge of finding ‘Fit for Purpose’ data

The paper examines drivers of change in agricultural land use in order to identify data requirements and assess data suitability. In order to assess the fitness for purpose of available data, the paper provides an overview of the sources of data for agriculture and land use in the UK, in both a contemporary and historical context. It provides a brief assessment of the state of scientific knowledge on the analysis of land use change, combined with a consideration of some of the possible advances promised by the new land use science.