Farms, fields and mines: an historic landscape analysis of Calstock parish

This report presents a characterisation of the ‘historic landscape’ – the present pattern of fields, roads, settlements and land-uses – in the parish of Calstock, in the Tamar Valley, Cornwall (Figure 1). The characterisation is based upon the Ordnance Survey First Edition Six Inch to One Mile maps of 1889, with additional data from earlier cartographic sources including the Tithe Map and Apportionment of 1839. The morphology of the landscape is described, along with data on when settlements are first documented, and the patterns of land-ownership and land-occupancy that they are associated with. A total of twelve historic landscape types are identified that range from ‘Late Enclosure’, that represents the enclosure of extensive former common pasture on the higher ground, through to ‘Strip-Based Fields’ that are derived from medieval open fields that were probably created by the time of the Domesday survey in 1086.Heritage Lottery Fun

The Living Past: the origins and development of the historic landscape of the Blackdown Hills - Phase 1: archive report

This report represents the archive for The Living Past: the origins and development of the historic landscape of the Blackdown Hills Project, which covered the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the borders of Devon and Somerset (Figures 1-4).It is intended to act as a record of the work carried out, rather than being a free-standing report, and as such is designed to complement the Summary Report. It contains a detailed description of the sources and methodologies used, an indepth commentary on each of the historic landscape character types, and a discussion of the other pieces of analysis carried out

How well is current plant trait composition predicted by modern and historical forest spatial configuration?

There is increasing evidence to suggest that a delayed response of many forest species to habitat loss and fragmentation leads to the development of extinction debts and immigration credits in affected forest habitat. These time lags result in plant communities which are not well predicted by present day landscape structure, reducing the accuracy of biodiversity assessments and predictions for future change. Here, species richness data and mean values for five life history characteristics within deciduous broadleaved forest habitat across Great Britain were used to quantify the degree to which aspects of present day forest plant composition are best explained by modern or historical forest patch area. Ancient forest specialist richness, mean rarity and mean seed terminal velocity were not well predicted by modern patch area, implying the existence of a degree of lag in British forest patches. Mean seedbank persistence values were more closely related to modern patch area than historical, particularly in larger patches. The variation in response for different mean trait values suggests that species respond to landscape change at different rates depending upon their combinations of different trait states. Current forest understorey communities are therefore likely to consist of a mixture of declining species whose extinction debt is still to be paid, and faster colonising immigrant species. These results indicate that without management action, rare and threatened species of plant are likely to be lost in the future as a result of changes in forest spatial configuration that have already taken place. The lag seen here for rare specialist plants suggests however that there may still be scope to protect such species before they are lost from forest patches

Traits of plant communities in fragmented forests: the relative influence of habitat spatial configuration and local abiotic conditions

1. The plant trait composition of forest fragments is thought to be partly determined by forest spatial properties, although the relative importance of habitat configuration and local abiotic drivers is poorly understood. 2. To address this issue, large-scale habitat extent data were combined with detailed field survey information for temperate broad-leaved deciduous forest patches to quantify the relative effects of spatial and abiotic filters on plant community mean trait values. 3. Local conditions such as shade and soil fertility had the largest effect on mean trait values, but aspects of habitat configuration also had significant partial effects on a number of traits. 4. Mean trait values within older forest patches were more strongly influenced by forest spatial configuration than in younger patches. 5. Synthesis. Results indicate that, in addition to the effects of greater light availability and competition in small patches and at forest edges, aspects of habitat configuration such as patch size and isolation are themselves important factors limiting the occurrence of forest specialist species. Large areas of core forest habitat contain a greater proportion of rare, poor dispersing species, although these effects were less visible in more recently established forest. This highlights the importance of maintaining existing large and old forest patches as a refuge for forest specialist plants. The results of this comparison of spatial and abiotic variables suggest that controlling the spatial properties of forest patches is likely to prove an effective way of managing plant species diversity, provided that sites with appropriate abiotic conditions are chosen

Farming regions in medieval England: the archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological evidence

© Society for Medieval Archaeology 2014. Accepted version deposited in accordance with SHERPA RoMEO guidelines. The definitive version is available at http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/0076609714Z.00000000036Regional variation in landscape character has in the past been studied by archaeologists in terms of its physical manifestations such as different settlement patterns and field systems. Local and regional distinctiveness in landscape character also results from how rural communities practised different agricultural regimes, and historians have long recognised the extent to which these varied across the country. Archaeologists, in contrast, have compared the animal bones and cereal remains from sites of different socio-economic status, but have not previously focused on the extent to which they vary across different geologies. This paper therefore presents an analysis of the animal bones of the three main domesticates (cattle, sheep/goat and pig), and the charred grains of the four main cereal crops (bread wheat, barley, oats and rye), across a series of different surface geologies within a study area extending from East Anglia down to the South-West Peninsula. It shows that, first, patterns of animal husbandry and cereal cultivation varied considerably across different surface geologies; secondly that, while farming practices do appear to have been influenced by surface geologies, they were also affected by cultural factors, particularly as human communities responded to the opportunities of a growing market economy; and thirdly that, while archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological patterns evident in the mid-11th–mid-14th centuries conform with what documentary sources tell us, the particular importance of this archaeological dataset is that it allows us to reconstruct farming regimes back into the undocumented early medieval (and indeed earlier) periods.Leverhulme Trus

Constructed Wetlands Suitability for Sugarcane Profitability, Freshwater Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Freshwater ecosystems, such as wetlands, are among the most impacted by agricultural expansion and intensification through extensive drainage and pollution. There is a pressing need to identify ways of managing agricultural landscapes to ensure food and water security without jeopardising biodiversity and other environmental benefits. Here we examine the potential fish biodiversity and landholder financial benefits arising from the integration of constructed lagoons to improve drainage, flow regulation and habitat connectivity within a sugarcane dominated catchment in north Queensland, Australia. A hybrid approach was used, combining the findings of both fish ecological surveys and a financial cost-benefit analysis. We found that the constructed lagoons supported at least 36 native freshwater fishes (over half of all native freshwater fishes in the region), owing to their depth, vegetated margins, moderate water quality and high connectivity to the Tully River. In addition to biodiversity benefits, we estimated that surrounding sugarcane farms would have financially benefited from reduced flooding of cropland and the elevation of low-lying cropland with deposited spoil excavated from lagoon construction. Improved drainage and flow regulation allowed for improvement in sugarcane yield and elevated land increased gross margins from extending the length of the cane production cycle or enabling a switch from cattle grazing to cane production. Restoring or creating wetlands to reduce flooding in flood-prone catchments is a globally applicable model that could improve both agricultural productivity and aquatic biodiversity, while potentially increasing farm income by attracting payments for provision of ecosystem services

Improving HIV Surveillance Data for Public Health Action in Washington, DC: A Novel Multiorganizational Data-Sharing Method

Background: The National HIV/AIDS Strategy calls for active surveillance programs for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to more accurately measure access to and retention in care across the HIV care continuum for persons living with HIV within their jurisdictions and to identify persons who may need public health services. However, traditional public health surveillance methods face substantial technological and privacy-related barriers to data sharing. Objective: This study developed a novel data-sharing approach to improve the timeliness and quality of HIV surveillance data in three jurisdictions where persons may often travel across the borders of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Methods: A deterministic algorithm of approximately 1000 lines was developed, including a person-matching system with Enhanced HIV/AIDS Reporting System (eHARS) variables. Person matching was defined in categories (from strongest to weakest): exact, very high, high, medium high, medium, medium low, low, and very low. The algorithm was verified using conventional component testing methods, manual code inspection, and comprehensive output file examination. Results were validated by jurisdictions using internal review processes. Results: Of 161,343 uploaded eHARS records from District of Columbia (N=49,326), Maryland (N=66,200), and Virginia (N=45,817), a total of 21,472 persons were matched across jurisdictions over various strengths in a matching process totaling 21 minutes and 58 seconds in the privacy device, leaving 139,871 uniquely identified with only one jurisdiction. No records matched as medium low or low. Over 80% of the matches were identified as either exact or very high matches. Three separate validation methods were conducted for this study, and they all found ≥90% accuracy between records matched by this novel method and traditional matching methods. Conclusions: This study illustrated a novel data-sharing approach that may facilitate timelier and better quality HIV surveillance data for public health action by reducing the effort needed for traditional person-matching reviews without compromising matching accuracy. Future analyses will examine the generalizability of these findings to other applications