We use some essential cookies to make this website work.
We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use forestresearch.gov.uk, remember your settings and improve our services.
We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.
This project aims to better understand climate change risks to woodland created on, or proposed for, sites classified as Vacant or Derelict Land (VDL).
It aims to highlight specific risks which may be elevated on VDL sites due to their unique features.
Further, this project aims to identify, develop, and communicate guidance on adaptation and mitigation measures to practitioners and stakeholders.
The project will publish recommended management actions to improve risk management and help ensure woodland on VDL is climate change ready.
This project is part of the Nature for Climate Fund.
The project team has made significant progress on several goals. In September 2023, a stakeholder engagement workshop was held, bringing together relevant Vacant & Derelict Land (VDL) regeneration stakeholders. The workshop focused on identifying and discussing the risks that climate change poses to the creation and management of woodlands and greenspaces on VDL land, both now and in the future.
The climate change risks identified during the workshop guided a literature review and gap analysis work package. This work aimed to identify existing research and guidance on adapting to and mitigating these risks in woodlands on VDL land.
The review found that certain climate change risks are exacerbated on VDL sites due to inherent features such as poor soil quality and depth. Moreover, there is little explicit guidance or research specifically addressing climate change risks to woodlands on VDL sites. However, some guidance from more conventional woodland sites may be adapted to help VDL woodland stakeholders with risk adaptation and mitigation.
The project team is working with external experts to update a decision support tool, specifically a soil-depth model for VDL sites. Once finished and available online, this tool will let practitioners enter site locations and soil variables. It will then calculate a minimum soil thickness needed to help ensure that mature trees receive enough water during the growing season. Additionally, the tool will include future climate projections to show the soil thickness required under both current and future climate scenarios.
Researcher - Climate-Ready Greenspaces
Head of Climate Change Science
Science group leader
Cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website.
We use cookies to store information about how you use the dwi.gov.uk website, such as the pages you visit.
Find out more about cookies on forestresearch.gov.uk
We use 3 types of cookie. You can choose which cookies you're happy for us to use.
These essential cookies do things like remember your progress through a form. They always need to be on.
We use Google Analytics to measure how you use the website so we can improve it based on user needs. Google Analytics sets cookies that store anonymised information about: how you got to the site the pages you visit on forestresearch.gov.uk and how long you spend on each page what you click on while you're visiting the site
Some forestresearch.gov.uk pages may contain content from other sites, like YouTube or Flickr, which may set their own cookies. These sites are sometimes called ‘third party’ services. This tells us how many people are seeing the content and whether it’s useful.