LANDMAP, Landscape and a Changing Climate

The changing climate of Wales is likely to have significant direct (e.g. changing land cover) and indirect (e.g. by influencing land use decisions) impacts on landscape character, quality and local distinctiveness. Flooding and drought events, more frequent extreme weather, coastal erosion, wildfires, diseases affecting tree cover and changing land cover, habitats and species ranges are examples of how the landscape may change to a greater or lesser degree, in the short or long term. Landscape character can provide an important communication tool to raise awareness and understanding of the risks and opportunities of climate change because people relate to landscapes as places to live, work and enjoy. It is therefore opportune to bring together information on the impacts from a changing climate and apply them to a landscape perspective. This project is the first step in starting to identify and communicate the direct and indirect impacts of projected climate changes for Wales in 2050 on landscape character and qualities and what that might look like in the landscape we recognise today. This project identifies the impacts of climate change on broad landscape types using the LANDMAP Visual & Sensory spatial dataset. It provides maps that identify the spatial distribution of the broad landscape types supported by key statistics, and offers a series of written narratives of potential change for each landscape type.