Current Projects

Mark is leading the applicaion of the Living Landscapes approach in carrying out a character assessment at a greatly enhanced scale to previous LCA work in the county. Today's range of requirements necessitate an integrated and detailed approach, which works to draw in the site specifics of HLC and biodiversity information together with the national and regional context: the LDU framework, unique to the LL Method, underpins this and forms the basis for the development of a project wide Integrated Landscape Framework. This provides the decision making framework for guiding the future of the Devon landscape as well as an information base for the full range of stakeholders. Mark is also leading the team that is carrying out the field survey work, initially in the East Devon and Blackdown Hills AONB.

As with Devon, Mark is leading the LCA work for this project. As well as deriving the LDUs for the county and IoS, Mark has led the team that coordinated a local authority group of field surveyors. As well as providing a LCA at a far greater detail than work previously undertaken here, a database driven website will provide public and decision makers alike with a dynamic information source to suit their various needs.

We are currently working with a partnerhsip of AONBs to deliver a methodology for landscape monitoring in these important areas. Early piloting work is being further refined to provide a comprehensive approach to establishing a baseline against which to monitor and drive landscape change across the project area.

Diacono Associates has established itself as the national specialist in GIS in character assessment. In addition to a wealth of related work and developmental projects for the conservation aganecies in England, this has led to involvement in the development of the LANDMAP Manual for Wales, the GIS based approach supported by the Countryside Council for Wales launched in 2001. We continue to be involved in many of the LANDMAP projects being undertaken in Wales.