The Community-led Landscape Character Assessment (LCAT) pilot, developed by Transform Rural India (TRI), examined 13 villages across seven districts of Uttar Pradesh —ranging from the moist Terai foothills to the semi-arid plateau of Bundelkhand—to pioneer a re-integrated approach to rural planning. By examining local landscapes across eight interdependent life-elements (Jeevan Tatva), including hydrology, soil, biodiversity, and community governance, LCAT provides a structured framework to read the village as a single living system. This participatory exercise bridges community memory with formal administrative planning, capturing how climate variability, land-useshifts, and socio-economic pressures interact on the ground.
