Changes in Wales related to semi-natural/natural, cultivated/managed, urban, naturally bare and water environments. In conjunction with international partners from Australia and Europe, Living Wales has developed a new change taxonomy that provides a standardized approach to the description of the drivers, pressures and impacts of change that can be used to support historical and near real time monitoring.
Change
Agriculture
Agricultural changes are associated with croplands (seeding, growth, harvesting, ploughing or irrigating) or use (cutting, grazing, fertilising).
Natural surfaces
Natural surface changes include erosion and sedimentation but also changes in dune systems and lava flows.
Vegetation
Vegetation changes relate to forests (trees or shrubs) or herbaceous (forbs, graminoids) vegetation. Changes leading to loss, conversion or degradation are deforestation, degradation, selective logging, defoliation, thinning and dieback. Recovery is associated with growth, succession and thickening.
Water
Increases in water, snow or ice extent, depth, flows or debris/sediment loads are associated with flooding, inundation, snow fall, water logging and sea level rise whilst decreases are linked to drought and snow melt. Over the longer term, changes in hydroperiod occur. Human-induced changes include dam creation, land drainage and pollution.
Urban
Urban changes are construction (buildings or transport and communication networks), waste dumps or extraction sites, or renewal.