The Landscape of East Lothian

Carol Anderson, with contributions from Frazer McNaughton

The National Countryside Monitoring Scheme (NCMS)

This was begun in 1986, to produce an objective account of key changes in land cover between three snapshots in time: the late 1940s, early 1970s and the late 1980s. The Scheme involved the use of aerial photographs to plot changes in features such as grassland, woodland and moorland over sample areas throughout Scotland. The Scheme has shown that in the Lothian region as a whole since the late 1940s there have been general increases in the area of coniferous plantation, built land, transport corridor, recreation and bare ground (mining/quarrying) and tracks. Rough grassland, arable, broadleaved woodland, parkland and hedgerows decreased in area.