The focus of this project was to provide an expert-led, rapid qualitative assessment of land management interventions on Ecosystem Services (ES) proposed for inclusion in Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. This involved a review of the current evidence base for 741 land management actions on 33 Ecosystem Services and 53 Ecosystem Service indicators by ten teams involving 45 experts drawn from the independent research community in a consistent series of Evidence Reviews covering the broad topics of:
• Air quality
• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Soils
• Water management
• Biodiversity: croplands
• Biodiversity: improved grassland
• Biodiversity: semi-natural habitats
• Biodiversity: integrated systems-based actions
• Carbon sequestration
• Cultural services (including recreation, geodiversity and regulatory services).
It should be noted that this piece of work is just one element of the wider underpinning work Defra has commissioned to support the development of the ELM schemes
