Glastir Monitoring and Evaluation Programme, Wales, 2013-2016

In Wales, funding from agri-environment schemes (AES) has been available since the early 1990s including ESAs, the Habitat Scheme, Woodland Grant scheme, Farm and Conservation grant scheme, Tir Cymen, Tir Cynnal, Tir Gofal and now Glastir. A monitoring programme was set up by the Welsh Government between 2013 and 2016 to monitor the effects of the Glastir scheme on the environment – the Glastir Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (GMEP). The aim of the Glastir monitoring is to collect evidence for the effectiveness of bundles of management interventions in delivering outcomes of interest related to climate change, biodiversity, soil and water quality and woodland expansion. The monitoring is also required to collect evidence to quantify the status and trends in the environment in general. Synthesis and analysis of this data will seek to identify how the Welsh environment is being impacted by drivers of change, such as land use, climate and pollution over and above Glastir interventions. The field survey element was based on a stratified random sampling design of 300 x 1km square sites across Wales, and was managed by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.