NCA Student Blog 

Maddie Bolton reflects on her placement year with NCA

Over the last 12 months I have had the opportunity to complete my placement year with Natural Capital Advisory, gaining valuable experience in GIS, whilst contributing to projects that have huge positive impacts for biodiversity, water quality and more across the UK. Working alongside the amazing team, I have developed my technical skills and gained insight into how geospatial data supports decision-making in the natural capital and conservation sectors. 

My work with Natural Capital Advisory has largely revolved around Land App – a mapping platform which is designed to make land use easier to understand for farmers and other land owners who don’t have as much mapping experience. It makes mapping more accessible given that it is free for all the things a typical farmer would need to use it for, such as inputting more detailed habitat data from ‘ground-truthed’ site surveys and editing habitat data to reflect opportunities for habitat development. 

Here are some of the important farmer-led projects I worked on this year:

SWEF Heritage Lottery Fund Project 

• In 2025 SWEF won a £100,000 HLF bid to fund the growth of the group and give it the potential to deliver its goals of biodiversity restoration, clean water and net zero.  
• As part of this, a catchment-scale conservation plan based on ecological assessments of its members land holdings was formed, for this project around 22 maps were created. It was a brilliant project to be a part of as the project also aims to protect populations of threatened wildlife such as curlew, hen harrier, merlin, red squirrel and Atlantic Salmon. 

PEF Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) Project

• PEF were awarded funding from the FiPL programme to support a farmer led, landscape scale plan for environmental recovery across the South West Peak and Dark Peak. For this project, similar to the SWEF project, I mapped the participating members farms creating layouts showing the baseline habitat assessments and the land management plans. 

EFG Environmental Transition Plans 

• I have also created maps for the Hampshire Avon Environmental Transition Plan, which is a farmer-led plan for reversing biodiversity loss, net zero farming and clean water in England’s largest chalk stream catchment.  
• For this project I made maps of EFG Membership, water quality and more across the Hampshire Avon.  
• I have also created maps for conservation plans of other catchments such as Dorset Stour, Isle of Wight, North York Moors, and Test & Itchen using similar data. These reports are yet to be published so keep an eye out for some of them over the next 12 months! 

EFG River Restoration and Water Quality Workshop 

• EFG and GWCT co-hosted the River Restoration Workshop back in December to explore the work of current EFG members and to develop a farmer led action plan for restoration of the Hampshire Avon catchment.  
• For this event I created several maps depicting water quality in the Hampshire Avon and distribution of EFG’s members and expressions of interest across the catchment’s waterbodies. 

EFG Southern Meeting 

• The first EFG event I attended was the EFG Southern Member meeting, where discussions focused on nutrient neutrality, soil carbon and opportunities within BNG markets. I helped with the setup of the event on the day, checked in arriving guests and assisted the caterers at points too!  
• It was nice seeing maps that I had worked on presented to a room full of farmers and I saw first hand where the maps that I make end up and how important they are for helping farmers to visualise opportunities. 

GWCT Salmon and Trout Research Centre 

• On a day out with the team to the GWCT Salmon and Trout Research Centre, we met with Dylan Thomas from the Fisheries Team and learned about river restoration on the River Frome and the importance of salmon as indicators of ecosystem health. Very eye-opening to hear just how rapidly numbers have fallen in recent decades due to anthropogenic activity. 

EFG AGM 

• For EFG’s AGM I provided support both in the weeks leading up to the event (in the form of plenty of map making!) and on the day, where I worked alongside the team helping to set up and assist with the running of the event. Following updates from the team, keynote speaker Lord Deben give a thought-provoking speech on the challenges presented to UK farmers by climate change, and panel discussions highlighted the growth potential of the natural capital sector and the importance of projects being backed with reliable, comprehensive data. 

Looking back at when I first began my placement, it has become clear that my GIS skills have come leaps and bounds this year. Compared to many of my earlier maps, ones I have been creating at present have much more of a professional look – I have learned a lot about what makes a clear and effective map. I have also learned new and creative ways to visualise geospatial data which I will carry forward in university projects and other future GIS endeavours. Overall, it has been amazing working for NCA as the maps I’ve made help to bring environmental improvement plans to life by providing helpful visuals, and I love that I’ve been able to contribute towards such a wide variety of meaningful projects during my time with the team!