Report and publish results - delete for now, save for later
Once the assessment has been completed and validated, the final step is to produce, validate, and publish the landscape profile and, optionally, a PDF report. The landscape profile is automatically filled out and published once the results--whether one or many--have successfully gone through the Step C validation process. At the end of Step C, the assessment team may choose to carry out the following additional tasks to generate a PDF report:
Build the landscape report: Create a detailed report that summarizes the assessment process, methodology, key findings, and results.
Translate the landscape report: If needed, the report can be translated into other languages to ensure accessibility for a wider audience.
Publish the landscape report: Once the report is finalized (and possibly translated), it can be published on the platform and distributed publicly.
If the assessment team chooses to generate a PDF report, it will need to go through validation by the LandScale team.
Build the landscape report
The landscape report is created on the LandScale platform using a standard format and design, ensuring consistency and ease of navigation for all landscape reports. The content of the report consists of a combination of:
Automatically populated content: Information gathered and submitted during previous steps.
Standard text provided by LandScale: This text can be edited or customised by the assessment team as needed.
Custom text and images: Additional content added by the assessment team.
If the assessment team wishes to revise any auto-populated content that has been generated from prior steps, this may require LandScale to validate the new information, which could delay the completion and publication of the report.
Language requirements for the landscape report
The landscape report must be written in English. The LandScale platform allows the use of tools to help the assessment team check for grammar, spelling, and other language-specific issues. The clarity and quality of the report’s language will be assessed during the Step C validation process. LandScale will not correct or edit the report content but, as part of the validation process, may require the assessment team to revise or improve content that is unclear, illogical, or not written in proper English.
For tips on writing, assessment teams may refer to our report writing guide, linked below:
Landscape report format
The landscape report follows a standard format, including the following sections:
Front page.
About this report, acknowledgments, and logos.
Table of contents.
Executive summary.
Featured results.
Conclusion.
References.
Appendices:
Validated metric results.
Landscape overview.
Indicator and metric selection.
Data evaluation.
Stakeholder engagement plan.
Local review summary.
Adjacency analysis (if applicable).
Custom appendices (optional).
The executive summary section should provide a holistic overview of the results at the goal level, while the featured results section highlights key findings, with the full set of metric results available as an appendix.
Key characteristics of a landscape report
A well-crafted landscape report should meet the following criteria:
Objective: The narrative must be based on the assessment results validated by LandScale and be presented in a representative and balanced manner. The assessment team should avoid introducing material that is not objective or not based on validated results, such as undocumented information, unsubstantiated assertions, personal opinions, speculation about causes or trends, or future predictions. Both favorable and less favorable results should be discussed without undue emphasis on either.
Engaging: The landscape report should be concise, accessible, and visually appealing to effectively communicate the assessment results. The use of data visualizations is recommended to highlight key results and make complex data easier to understand.
Holistic: The landscape report should include assessment results from all segments of the assessment scope (e.g., all pillars and goals).
In addition to the auto-generated components, the assessment team is responsible for creating custom content for three key sections of the landscape report's main body (executive summary, featured results, and data visualizations and other graphics). Detailed guidance for crafting content for these sections are provided below.
Executive summary
The executive summary should provide a clear and concise overview of the assessment results, offering a holistic portrait of the landscape’s sustainability performance. It should:
Cover all goals included within the report’s scope.
Include both favourable and less favourable results to present a balanced and accurate depiction of the landscape's performance.
Highlight areas of progress or strong performance alongside areas in need of improvement.
The executive summary serves as a key entry point for readers, ensuring they grasp the overarching outcomes and critical insights from the assessment.
Featured results
The featured results section allows the assessment team to present selected results in greater detail. These results may focus on those that are particularly noteworthy or significant for landscape sustainability management, as well as topics or trends of special interest to the assessment proponent, landscape stakeholders, or other target users. However, the featured results must include information on all goals within the report scope and provide a balanced perspective by covering both favorable and less favorable results. Featured results are typically presented and synthesized at the goal or indicator level.
Assessment teams are encouraged to use the 'featured results' narrative to provide useful interpretation and contextualization of the raw metric results. This may include:
Highlighting relationships between different goals, indicators, or metrics, including any apparent synergies or tradeoffs among multiple landscape objectives.
Identifying connections and/or apparent contradictions in results (e.g., natural ecosystem conversion decreased yet threats to biodiversity increased significantly).
Identifying specific events or circumstances widely accepted as causal factors for the observed trends in individual or multiple results (e.g., recent wildfires leading to significant declines in forest cover).
Providing comparative analysis of related metrics (e.g., whether the pace of restoration is commensurate with the pace of ecosystem conversion and degradation).
Evaluating metric results against any established targets and milestones to assess progress towards the desired sustainability outcomes defined by landscape stakeholders.
Explaining data sources, methodologies used to assess metrics, and any limitations that are important for understanding and interpreting the published results.
For repeat assessments, providing a synthesis and interpretation of previous assessment results, current results, and observed trends. If changes in data quality, methodologies, or metric definitions (e.g., due to updates to the LandScale assessment framework) significantly affect trend data and their interpretation, such aspects should be discussed as well.
Prohibited practices
When building the landscape report, assessment teams must avoid:
Over-extrapolating results to come to conclusions that cannot be supported by validated, published results and their underlying data. For example, it is not appropriate to claim that water quality is excellent across the entire landscape based on results from only a limited number of water bodies.
Suggesting that the landscape is 'sustainable', as LandScale does not define a specific threshold for what constitutes 'sustainable'.
Attributing results, either in part or in full, to specific actors, actions, policies, or programs. While contribution claims based on validated LandScale results are possible, these should not be included in the landscape report itself. Instead, any such claims should be pursued separately, following the LandScale claims guidelines.
Data visualizations and other graphics
The landscape report should include data visualizations, such as graphics, charts, tables, and other visual devices, to present assessment results in a clear and intuitive manner. Note that the landscape report does not need to include a comprehensive set of data visualizations for all published results, as the full results will automatically be compiled in an appendix to the report.
Due to the variety of visualizations that may be useful, these are not automated within the LandScale platform. Instead, visualizations should be created off-platform and uploaded to the platform’s image library. Refer to the Data Visualization supporting document for guidelines and resources to create effective visualizations.
Key considerations for data visualizations include:
Focus on key patterns: The assessment team should focus on developing data visualizations that best illustrate the broad patterns discussed in the executive summary and the conclusions presented in the featured results.
Synthesize information: Where appropriate, the assessment team should synthesize data from multiple metrics to reflect performance at the indicator level, or even at the goal level, where feasible. For example, synthesizing data across the three metrics for human health and nutrition (indicator 2.1.2) can make the results more relevant and actionable for landscape actors.
Pillar-level synthesis (optional): At the executive summary level, pillar-level synthesis can be useful to provide an overview of sustainability performance across the landscape.
In addition to data visualizations, the assessment team can include additional visuals, such as photographs and maps, to help engage the audience and convey information that may be difficult to communicate in text alone.
LandScale allows assessment teams to reference external materials by providing links to documents or websites. For example, a landscape partnership website or a published landscape action plan can be linked in the landscape report. However, please note that LandScale will not validate the content of external publications linked on the platform. If there are concerns about the credibility of external content, LandScale reserves the right to prohibit its reference on the platform.
Appendices
The appendices of the landscape report serve to document the work conducted during prior steps of the assessment process. This includes the complete set of validated metric results for publication, along with supporting information related to the data used to generate those metrics.
Content for all appendices is auto-generated from inputs in earlier steps. Some of this content may be edited, as specified in the platform instructions for each appendix.
If the assessment team wishes, they may revisit optional components of the assessment process that were previously skipped. However, any new content must be validated before it can be published.
Custom appendices (optional)
The assessment team may choose to add custom appendices to the landscape report to provide additional relevant information. Examples of custom appendices could include a landscape theory of change, landscape action plan, or supplementary maps and photos.
While LandScale does not validate custom appendices, they may be reviewed as part of the overall report validation process. LandScale reserves the right to require modifications or removal of any custom content deemed incorrect, unsubstantiated, or misleading prior to publication.
Since custom appendices are not validated, they will be clearly labeled in the report to differentiate them from validated content.
Recommended stakeholder input
LandScale recommends that assessment teams invite landscape partners, stakeholders, and experts to review the draft landscape report. This step helps to socialize the assessment results and provides stakeholders an opportunity to comment on how the results are presented, contextualized, and interpreted.
The review of the draft report is optional but offers the assessment team a chance to refine the report based on stakeholder feedback before seeking validation. This process is distinct from the local review, which takes place in Step C.
If stakeholders are invited to review the draft report at this stage, it is not expected nor required that all stakeholders agree with every result or interpretation. Nevertheless, feedback at this stage can help improve the report and enhance its relevance and acceptance by key stakeholders.
Translate the landscape report (optional)
Assessment teams may choose to translate the landscape report into local language(s). The translated report should contain the same content as the original English report built on the platform, with no additions or exclusions (appendices may be excluded from the translation). LandScale permits the publication of translated landscape reports on the platform.
Translated reports will not be validated by the LandScale team. However, LandScale reserves the right to prevent the publication of a translated report, or to request revisions, if there are concerns about its fidelity to the validated English content.
Validate and publish the landscape report
Validation of the landscape report involves reviewing the report itself, as well as any changes made to the assessment in relation to items that were already validated in prior steps. Validation of the landscape report can only be pursued after all previous steps have been successfully validated.
Once Step C is validated, the assessment team may decide if and when to publish the landscape report. Documentation requirements and validation criteria for the process are outlined below.
Documentation requirements
The following materials must be submitted through the LandScale platform for validation:
Documentation of any changes made to the assessment relative to items that were already validated in prior steps.
The landscape report, including data visualizations and additional graphics.
The landscape report appendices.
Landscape report appendix, with the full list of local reviewers and the indicators that they reviewed. Refer to the local review guidance for more information on how local reviewers should be identified in the landscape report - (move to next).
Validation criteria
Validation will confirm whether the following requirements have been fulfilled:
Any changes made to the assessment relative to previously validated items are appropriate and do not necessitate re-validation based on the validation requirements of prior steps.
The landscape report is complete and accurately represents the findings, ensuring no misrepresentation through means such as (but not limited to):
Stating or implying attribution to or contribution of specific actors to particular outcomes. While contribution claims based on validated LandScale results are possible, these should not be included in the landscape report itself. Instead, any such claims should be pursued separately, following the LandScale claims guidelines.
Failing to include less favorable results, or otherwise misrepresenting the balance between favorable and less favorable results, as indicated by the results and underlying data.
Drawing conclusions or inferences that are not supported by the underlying results and data.
The landscape report is written in proper English suitable for publication.
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