Enhancing beauty, heritage and engagement with the natural environment

Figure 11 shows the proportion of indicator components for which ‘Enhancing beauty, heritage and engagement with the natural environment’ is the primary goal that have been assigned to each assessment category, with the exact number of indicator components shown as a label on the bars.

Two indicators are classed as ‘not assessed’ in Figure 11 because they are still in development (G1 Changes in landscape and waterscape character and H5 Exposure to transport noise). A further 6 indicator components are presented as interim in this year’s report, but currently only have one or two years of data so don’t have a sufficient time series for an assessment. Three indicator components were assessed: Area of woodland in England, Frequency of visits to the natural environment and Volunteer time spent on the natural environment in England. The latter 2 indicators showed an improvement in the most recent 5-year period for which data were available (2013 to 2018). The observed increases in the area of woodland in England over the most recent 5 years (2016 to 2021) and in the medium term (2011 to 2021) are assessed as ‘little or no change’.