Farm health check

The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is offering farmers a FREE and confidential farm environmental health check.

1. Detailed habitat mapping

• Land cover maps – based on the latest 10m resolution (or 3m where available) satellite data
• Habitat connectivity metrics – describing the ease of movement of organisms between different areas based on how joined up habitats are
• Crop maps and diversity – reporting spatial and temporal patterns of crops within the landscape
• Soil carbon stocks – modelled using soil type, land use, and cropping history derived from satellite data
• Hedgerows – extent and height mapped through aircraft laser scanning technology
• Species richness indices - quantifying habitat suitability for mammals, birds, reptiles & amphibians, and insects.

2. Whole farm audits using farm management data

• Nitrogen use efficiency – calculated from fertiliser inputs, and yield data
• Pesticide risk – modelled using published toxicity of products, their timing of application, and their degradation rate. The assessment considers risks posed to soil biodiversity (earthworms and springtails), species useful for biocontrol of pests (lacewings and parasitic wasps), pollinators (honeybees), and water species
• Greenhouse gas emissions – carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane estimated using fertiliser production, fertiliser application, and machinery use. Uses IPCC 2019 emission factor guidance, backed-up by field data collected by the UKCEH GHG flux tower network and Skyline^TM autochamber measurements.

Once you know what you have on your farm, and how your farm operations translate into environmental effects, you can look at what you could do to mitigate the environmental impacts of your farming system. One option is to try out E-planner, which offers environmental opportunity mapping. Based on detailed data on soil type, topography, aspect, and landscape composition, E-planner maps suitable sites for: woodland planting; pollinator and wild bird habitat creation; water resource protection and natural flood management.

Detailed habitat mapping

For this part of the farm environmental health check, we simply need your SBI number, which will be requested in the sign-up form (link below).

Whole farm audit

To complete this part, we additionally require you to grant us access to your data in Gatekeeper or TELUS Farm Management (previously known as Muddy Boots). Please see instructions below on how to do this. Once we have completed the farm health check for your farm, we will return all the outputs to you as a pdf report.