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Study author Dr Andy Suggitt surveying habitat at Creag Meagaidh NNR, Scotland (Credit: NERC refugia project team).

EXPERT COMMENT: Our new map reveals the effects of 20th century land-use and climate change on Britain’s wild species

In an article written for The Conversation*, Andrew Suggitt, Assistant Professor in Geography and Environmental Sciences at Northumbria University, and Alistair Auffret, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, discuss how making a new map of land-use change for Great Britain helped their research into the extinction crisis.

The land use of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead as surveyed by the Land Use Survey of Britain between 1931 and 1935 (Copyright Giles Clark, CC-BY-NC-SA)

New map of 20th century land use in Britain helps researchers demystify biodiversity change

A collaboration led by Northumbria University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences has for the first time mapped how land use changed across Britain throughout the last century. The new map reveals how and where some 50 per cent of semi-natural grassland was lost, including 90 per cent of the country’s lowland meadows and pasture, as the country intensified its agriculture.

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