VALUES - VAluing Land Use change and Ecosystem Services

The VALUES project seeks to combine environmental data sets to build a prototype Geographical Information System (GIS) based tool which will support identification of optimum routes for large scale corridor style infrastructure developments in terms of the social, economic and environmental cost of land-use change, and also identifies areas of high ecosystem services value where mitigation action would be of particular benefit.
In this business led collaborative project, infrastructure developer Scottish Hydro Electricity Transmission Plc, the North of Scotland Electricity Transmission system owner, is partnering with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scotland’s environment regulator. Both partners are end users for the tool being developed. This innovative partnership, generally on opposing sides of project consenting, aims to promote shared understanding between the two by developing a common approach and joint tool. Other end users will be consulted through a programme of stakeholder engagement throughout the project.