Sustainability of Hill Farming, 2007-2008

<p>This is a mixed method data collection. The study is part of the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme.<br> <br>The project used the Peak District National Park as a case study to examine the impact of hill farming practices on upland biodiversity (using birds as an indicator group); how hill farms were responding to ongoing and future changes to policies and prices; what this would in turn imply for upland biodiversity; what the public wanted from upland ecosystems and how policies could be designed better to deliver public goods from hill farms.<br> <br>To answer these questions, the project team conducted ecological and economic surveys on hill farms; used survey results to parameterise ecological and economic models of this farming system; developed new ways to integrate these into coupled ecological and economic models and paid particular attention to interactions across farm boundaries; used the models to evaluate the performance of existing policies and to test designs that could lead to more effective policies; and conducted a range of choice experiments with different cross-sections of the general public to evaluate their preferences for upland landscapes.<br> <br>Ecological data from this study are available at the <a href="http://data.ceh.ac.uk/metadata/de5447b7-70bb-4a11-822b-c1f53987681e" title="Environmental Information Data Centre">Environmental Information Data Centre</a> of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.<br> <br>Further information for this study may be found through the <a href="https://www.researchcatalogue.esrc.ac.uk/grants/RES-227-25-0028/read" target="_blank" style="">ESRC Research Catalogue webpage: A Landscape-Scale Analysis of the Sustainability of the Hill Farming Economy and Impact of Farm Production Decisions.</a><br> </p>