Land use climate research could save UK economy £1.6 billion

Dr Pip Nicholas-Davies

Aberystwyth scientists are helping the agriculture sector hit its net zero targets by making best use of the UK’s grasslands.

The academics’ research on introducing precision grazing, forages, pastures and targeted tree and biomass crops could save the UK economy more than £1.6 billion per year and aims to help mitigate climate change.

Grasslands cover more than 70% of UK agricultural land and it is estimated that carbon sequestration, mainly under grassland soils, could account for half of agriculture’s contribution to reaching net zero.

Funded by UKRI, the three-year ‘Land Use for Net Zero Nature and People’ (LUNZ) Grassland project involves academics from Aberystwyth University and is co-ordinated by the University of the West of England.

Dr Pip Nicholas-Davies, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Life Sciences in Aberystwyth University, said:

“Grasslands are vital as a natural asset for achieving national and international climate, nature, and biodiversity targets, as well as a source of nutritious food. It is exciting for the team here to be undertaking this cutting-edge research into the interlinking themes of soil health, agricultural systems and land use change.

“As a society, we need to urgently reappraise

land-use and policy-making solutions that promote large scale, long-term, and integrated grassland management. The project will address the transformation of UK grasslands for net-zero while at the same time improving soil health and biodiversity. It could also realise major economic benefits saving the UK economy significant sums a year, for example by reducing the need for inputs such as nitrogen fertilisers.”

LUNZ Grassland is one of five research programmes funded to address the challenge of net zero UK emissions by 2050.  The five projects will work alongside the LUNZ Hub to share their findings with policy makers and others. 

Co-lead of the LUNZ Hub, Professor Lee-Ann Sutherland from the James Hutton Institute said:

“These are groundbreaking and ambitious projects that address many of the critical research gaps and challenges behind how we transition UK land use for both climate goals and society as a whole.

“In their design these projects reflect many of the characteristics of the Hub: transdisciplinary, addressing social, economic and scientific challenges simultaneously, and with a strong emphasis on designing and imagining scenarios that explain the transition to Net Zero.”

The LUNZ Hub is a consortium of 34 organisations that aims to provide the UK and devolved governments with the evidence they need for policies to drive the land use transformation required to reach net zero and other environmental and social targets by 2050.

The project is co-funded by UKRI, Defra, DESNZ, and has been co-designed with the Northern Ireland Executive, the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government.

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