NCEA People Pressure

Research Objectives

There is a clear policy need to better understand how woodlands are used and how recreational activities interact with ecosystem health. Key evidence gaps include the cumulative ecological effects of increasing visitor numbers, how visitor use varies across space and time, and how effective different management approaches are at reducing negative impacts. 

Evidence of the impacts of recreation on woodlands is limited and mixed. Much existing research focusses forest loss and degradation linked to development, rather pressures arising specifically from recreation (Clements & Ambrose-Oji, 2023). In particular, we lack detailed data linking different visitor types and activities to specific environmental outcomes. 

This project aimed to explore different approaches and data sources to monitor visitor pressure and recreational value in our woodlands. Our objective was to generate robust, quantitative evidence on woodland recreation that adds value to existing woodland surveys conducted as part of the National Forest Inventory (NFI). The project also aimed to identify a recommended approach for large scale woodland recreation monitoring, alongside its policy and management implications.  

We drew on a range of data sources, including: 

• People counters 
• Mobile phone detectors 
• Strava data 
• Social media data 

This data also supported work within the NCEA Bats project, delivered in collaboration the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT). AudioMoth acoustic recorders were used to develop acoustic indices to monitor different elements of the soundscape, including human-made noise (anthropophony) and wildlife sounds (biophony). These data will enable us to explore how recreational activity influences woodland soundscapes and biodiversity.   

Future work: Investigate the potential of integrating this dataset with wider NCEA NFI+ and concurrent NFI survey data to create a powerful spatio‑temporal resource spanning multiple above‑ and below‑ground taxa, including the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) and Red List species (e.g. all UK bat species). This integration could unlock new insights into how woodland structure shapes biodiversity across woodland types and landscapes, helping to drive more targeted, evidence‑led forest management to support biodiversity recovery.