30 - Southern Magnesian Limestone : Natural Capital and Key Ecosystem Services

Introduction

The Southern Magnesian Limestone NCA provides a wide range of benefits to society. Each is derived from the attributes and processes (both natural and cultural features) within the area. These benefits are known collectively as ‘ecosystem services’. The predominant services are summarised below. Further information on ecosystem services provided in the Southern Magnesian Limestone NCA is contained in the ‘Analysis’ section of this website.

What is Natural Capital?

Natural capital means “the elements of nature that directly or indirectly produce value to people, including ecosystems, species, freshwater, land, minerals, the air and oceans, as well as natural processes and functions” (Natural Capital Committee, 2017).

It is helpful to consider natural capital in the form of a logic chain that represents the links between ecosystem assets, services, benefits and value to people. The figure below displays that logic chain. The quantity and quality of ecosystem assets (woodland, bogs, etc) support different types of ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration or water filtration. These ecosystem services then provide different benefits to society, providing value for people. The figure also shows how management interventions, as well as pressures and drivers of change, influence this chain. Other capital inputs are also often needed for people to obtain the benefits from ecosystem services (a simple example is the processing of trees to produce wood products).

As an example, an area of woodland (ecosystem asset) may reduce air pollution created by traffic on a nearby road. This woodland is therefore improving air quality (ecosystem service) in the local area which results in cleaner air and improved health in the adjacent residential street (benefit). This cleaner air has a value because we know it impacts the health and wellbeing of communities.

Sometimes for ease of understanding, economic framing is used to give these benefits a monetary value. The figure below shows how natural capital assets support the provision of ecosystem services, benefits and value. The roots of the tree show how aspects of asset quality are critical to the provision of ecosystem services. The roots also show that geodiversity underpins the ecosystem assets and therefore the ecosystem services and benefits they can provide. It is important to remember that this diagram, and natural capital frameworks more generally, are a simplification of how nature works in practice.

Natural Capital within this NCA

In 2018, Natural England published ‘Natural Capital Indicators: for defining and measuring change in natural capital’ (Lusardi et al., 2018). This report identified key properties of the natural environment vital for the long-term sustainability of benefits, which can act as indicators of change.

These indicators are designed to inform our understanding of the state of our natural assets. The indicators highlight the importance of our natural assets for delivering which ecosystem service and the benefits they provide for society. The indicators and datasets identified in Natural England’s Natural Capital Indicators Project provide the foundation for the Natural Capital Atlas Profiles.

Natural England’s Natural Capital Atlas Profiles provide an “off the shelf” natural capital evidence base for each county or city region. They have a wide variety of uses with more information in the How to Start Using Your Natural Capital Atlas.

The Natural Capital indicators are presented on the map below by broad asset theme, displaying the natural capital within the NCA.

It is noted that not all indicators listed within the Natural Capital Atlas Profiles are included within the map as data is not yet available to measure them. Refer to the “Indicator Gaps and Limitations” of the Natural Capital Atlas Profiles for further information.

Natural Capital Atlas Profiles

The following Natural Capital Atlas Profiles cover counties within this NCA:
 

• 8: Derbyshire
• 28: North Yorkshire and York
• 30: Nottinghamshire
• 32: Sheffield City Region
• 42: West Yorkshire

Provisioning services (food, fibre and water supply)

Food provision: Agriculture is highly productive here, with half the land area classified as Grade 2, and predominantly cultivated for quality cereals and oilseeds. The free-draining loamy soils are important in providing fertile land for cultivation. In total approximately 75 per cent of the land is used for agriculture and the fertile soils yield higher production than many other areas. Grazing is also common on a quarter of the land but thought to be declining in recent years.

Water availability: The Magnesian Limestone is designated as a Principal Aquifer. Principal Aquifers are geological strata that exhibit high intergranular and/or fracture permeability and they usually provide a high level of water storage, supplying water and/or river base flow on a strategic scale. The entire NCA overlies the major Magnesian Limestone aquifer, where generally there is little groundwater available for further abstraction, and in some places there is over-abstraction. The soils that cover 55 per cent of the area are free draining and thus valuable for aquifer recharge, although good structural conditions will need to be maintained. Of the major rivers that cross the ridge, the Ure and Nidd are protected from further abstraction to ensure adequate flows further downstream.

There is no water available from the Wharfe or Cock Beck, but there is some available along the lower Aire. There are no major reservoirs in the area. For information regarding the current state of water availability within this NCA, refer to the Environment Agency (Abstraction Licensing Strategy).

Regulating services (water purification, air quality maintenance and climate regulation)

Regulating water quality:For information regarding the current state of water quality within this NCA, refer to the Environment Agency (Draft river basin management plan maps).

Cultural services (inspiration, education and wellbeing)

Sense of place/inspiration: A sense of place is provided by the distinctive rolling, elevated landform of the limestone ridge and the use of the local limestone as a building material reinforces the sense of place. The strong agricultural character of the landscape reflects the high-quality underlying soils that support predominantly arable farmland. A lack of hedgerow trees and low, flailed hawthorn hedges add to the open character of this farmed land which contrasts strongly with areas of significant woodland cover including woodlands of estates and designed parklands.

Significant small areas of unimproved calcareous grassland on steep valley sides and meadows in narrow valley bottoms, which are species rich, contribute colour and diversity to this landscape. Semi-natural ancient woodland, often with ash and lime forming the canopy with an understory of characteristic limestone shrub species, are an important feature of the limestone ridge and the river-cut gorges.

Within the valleys are more intimate landscapes, characterised by the World Heritage Site of Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey, which contrast with the dominant arable ridge. In addition, the rare quality of the groundwater, influenced by the underlying limestone and gypsum bedrock, has contributed to the development of breweries (for example at Tadcaster) and the small town of Boston Spa.

Sense of history: The long settlement history is evident in the fossil remains in the caves of Creswell Crags, and the grouping of Neolithic round barrows, henge monuments, bronze-age/iron-age settlements, iron-age hill forts and earthworks, and the Roman road that forms the basis for much of the route of the current A1. Settlement patterns vary throughout the area with a strong pattern of nucleated medieval limestone villages evident in the north-east, more traditional mining towns and villages in the west, medieval market towns (for example, Ripon, Knaresborough and Pontefract) and dispersed farmsteads. To the south the pattern of nucleated limestone villages reoccurs with some former mining settlements.

Historic character is reinforced by the use of local building materials, limestone combined with brick and stone cobbles with red pantile roofs, which in some places sit next to brick and slate terraces that housed the growing industrial population.

Other key features of the historic development of the area are the number of abbeys, including Fountains Abbey, and country houses with parkland and estate woodlands, including Bramham Park, Ledston, Lotherton and Hardwick Halls, Bolsover Castle and Newstead Abbey. Evidence of a more recent industrial past is revealed in the coal mining and related settlements towards the south and west, some created as model villages, such as at Creswell.

Biodiversity: The NCA includes some areas of nationally scarce Magnesian Limestone grassland which is species rich and also supports a wide range of invertebrates. This network is fragmented and patchy and at risk from scrub encroachment and nutrient enrichment. The high woodland cover supports a range of bat and bird species and often provides stepping stones and corridors through more intensely farmed areas. Where farmland is managed with well-maintained hedgerows and arable field margins this supports important assemblages of farmland birds.

Geodiversity: The Permian Magnesian Limestone that underlies this NCA has influenced much of the landscape through history and natural features. Creswell Crags provides internationally important evidence of early societies, with the cave art early evidence of settlers’ creative and cognitive response to the surrounding natural world. The underlying geology is particularly prominent where river valleys have cut through the limestone, likewise in road and rail cuttings and at former quarry and mining sites. There is much potential to provide increased access and interpretation of these features.

The area is important for the production of quality limestone for building and construction purposes, and for sand and gravel in the north of the area. Coal deposits were exploited through deep mining at Maltby, Langwith and Shirebrook while there are still shallow deposits that can be accessed through open cast mining around Castleford and Knottingley.