Land Capability Classification for Agriculture

Fisher, George Ross; Bibby, J. S.; Douglas, Hugh; Thomasson, A. J.; Robertson, John

doi:10.2307/634049

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…2.2.1 | Land availability based on physical marginality Agricultural land classifications (ALC) have been used in spatial modelling studies as a way to assess areas of land suitable for biomass crops and the implications of establishing them on those sites (Albanito et al, 2019;Hastings et al, 2014;Lovett et al, 2009Lovett et al, , 2014Milner et al, 2016). The ALC of England and Wales and the Macaulay Land Capability for Agriculture (MLCA) system of Scotland are the main survey methodologies that have been used to grade UK land and provide data to inform decisions within regional planning systems (Bibby et al, 1991;MAFF, 1988). Criteria for grading land vary between approaches, but land is graded according to factors associated with site (slope, micro-relief, and flood risk), soil quality (texture, structure, depth, stoniness, and chemical properties), climate (temperature, rainfall, aspect, exposure, and frost risk), and interacting factors (droughtiness, soil wetness, and erosion risk; Bibby et al, 1991;MAFF, 1988).…”

Section: For Upscaling Miscanthus Production In the United Kingdom?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 1.4 M ha estimated to be potentially available on ALC grade 4-5 equates to approximately 8% of the total GB agricultural land area (18 M ha; Lovett et al, 2014). Spatial modelling studies suggest that, once socioeconomic and ecosystem service factors are considered, restricting biomass production to physically marginal land areas T A B L E 2 GB land classifications: Comparing the post-1988 Agricultural land classification system (ALC) of England and Wales (MAFF, 1988), and the Macaulay Land Capability for Agriculture (MLCA) system of Scotland (Bibby et al, 1991). Based on the 8.5 M ha land area identified as potentially suitable for energy crops, excluding constraints on food production, as identified by Lovett et al (2014).…”

Section: For Upscaling Miscanthus Production In the United Kingdom?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ALC of England and Wales and the Macaulay Land Capability for Agriculture (MLCA) system of Scotland are the main survey methodologies that have been used to grade UK land and provide data to inform decisions within regional planning systems (Bibby et al., 1991; MAFF, 1988). Criteria for grading land vary between approaches, but land is graded according to factors associated with site (slope, micro‐relief, and flood risk), soil quality (texture, structure, depth, stoniness, and chemical properties), climate (temperature, rainfall, aspect, exposure, and frost risk), and interacting factors (droughtiness, soil wetness, and erosion risk; Bibby et al., 1991; MAFF, 1988). Site locations are graded on all criteria and the final attributed grade reflects the lowest grade identified from all survey parameters.…”

Section: What Is the Potential For Upscaling Miscanthus Production In...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Upscaling miscanthus production in the United Kingdom: The benefits, challenges, and trade‐offs

Hodgson,

McCalmont,

Rowe

et al. 2024

GCB Bioenergy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The UK sixth carbon budget has recommended domestic biomass supply should increase to meet growing demand, planting a minimum of 30,000 hectares of perennial energy crops a year by 2035, with a view to establishing 700,000 hectares by 2050 to meet the requirements of the balanced net zero pathway. Miscanthus is a key biomass crop to scale up domestic biomass production in the United Kingdom. A cohesive land management strategy, based on robust evidence, will be required to ensure upscaling of miscanthus cultivation maximizes the environmental and economic benefits and minimizes undesirable consequences. This review examines research into available land areas, environmental impacts, barriers to uptake, and the challenges, benefits, and trade‐offs required to upscale miscanthus production on arable land and grassland in the United Kingdom. Expansion of perennial biomass crops has been considered best restricted to marginal land, less suited to food production. The review identifies a trade‐off between avoiding competition with food production and a risk of encroaching on areas containing high‐biodiversity or high‐carbon stocks, such as semi‐natural grasslands. If areas of land suitable for food production are needed to produce the biomass required for emission reduction, the review indicates there are multiple strategies for miscanthus to complement long‐term food security rather than compete with it. On arable land, a miscanthus rotation with a cycle length of 10–20 years can be employed as fallow period for fields experiencing yield decline, soil fatigue, or persistent weed problems. On improved grassland areas, miscanthus presents an option for diversification, flood mitigation, and water quality improvement. Strategies need to be developed to integrate miscanthus into farming systems in a way that is profitable, sensitive to local demand, climate, and geography, and complements rather than competes with food production by increasing overall farm profitability and resilience.

show abstract

Section: For Upscaling Miscanthus Production In the United Kingdom?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: For Upscaling Miscanthus Production In the United Kingdom?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Is the Potential For Upscaling Miscanthus Production In...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Upscaling miscanthus production in the United Kingdom: The benefits, challenges, and trade‐offs

Hodgson,

McCalmont,

Rowe

et al. 2024

GCB Bioenergy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The course of the Wall was across predominantly dry and well-drained soils, built in a period of low rainfall. The soils along the Wall are today among the best in Scotland for arable agriculture (Bibby et al 1982), and this may have been an important consideration in the Wall's location and certainly in the development of the pre-Antonine Gask frontier (Hanson 1997). Hanson's (1978) calculations that consumption of turves would have had negligible impact on the the productivity of the surrounding land indicates that construction did not render unsustainable the soil resource, although Mate (1995) argued that such calculations ignore the consumption of turves for native buildings and field walls prior to the second century ad, and more of the landscape may have been scalped than we assume.…”

Section: Soilsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The landscape context of the Antonine Wall: a review of the literature

Tipping¹,

Tisdall²

2006

PSAS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The landscape, environmental and land use changes before, during and after Antonine occupation are examined for the region of central Scotland between the Southern Uplands and the Grampian Highlands, principally from the published literature. The purpose is to synthesize and make available a range of new palaeoenvironmental data, to evaluate critically these new data-sets, to search for significant shifts in landscape or land use and to characterize their timings and effects, thus placing the Antonine occupation in a coherent landscape context. It is established that economic expansion in the region occurred in the later Iron Age, demonstrably before Roman military occupation. This expansion developed from Bronze Age and earlier Iron Age small-scale farms and gathered pace in the last cal 200–300 years BC, for crop growing as well as pasture, and was continued rather than intensified in the first two centuries cal AD. It is difficult to see differences in this economic expansion north and south of the Antonine Wall itself, or east and west of the Forth–Clyde isthmus, but it is tentatively suggested that in the foothills of the Southern Uplands the Romans entered a landscape already decaying. Roman influence is perhaps recognizable at some localities in a reduction of cereal production and the expansion of grazed pasture, assumed to represent a restructuring of the native economy to support a new market. It is presumed that imports of foodstuffs continued to be important to Roman forces during Antonine occupation, although possible reconstructions of the sediments in the Forth and Clyde estuaries suggest these may not have provided ideal harbours. There is little evidence that this increased pastoral economy imposed stresses on soils or plant communities, and the market seems to have been readily supplied within the agricultural capacity of the landscape. Nevertheless, the native economy was probably artificially buoyed by the Roman presence, and withdrawal eventually led to what is best described as an agricutural recession, not population collapse.

show abstract

Soil and residue management effects on arable cropping conditions and nitrous oxide fluxes under controlled traffic in Scotland 1. Soil and crop responses

Ball¹,

Ritchie²

1999

Soil and Tillage Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Land Capability Classification for Agriculture

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Upscaling miscanthus production in the United Kingdom: The benefits, challenges, and trade‐offs

Upscaling miscanthus production in the United Kingdom: The benefits, challenges, and trade‐offs

The landscape context of the Antonine Wall: a review of the literature

Soil and residue management effects on arable cropping conditions and nitrous oxide fluxes under controlled traffic in Scotland 1. Soil and crop responses

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About