Research and monitoring

Our team of scientists undertakes rigorous research  to aid our understanding of the status and condition of many different aspects of moorlands. Much of this work takes place on remote moorland sites. The team draws its strength from a number of project staff, a pool of casual workers and a dedicated team of volunteers.

We study:

• water and hydrology
• biodiversity – vegetation and wildlife
• peat and carbon
• ecosystem services and land use economy
• tourism and recreation
• socio-economic aspects of upland management
• managing the risk of wildfire

We monitor the areas where we’ve worked to see:

• what effects our conservation work has
• whether and how well the conservation work meets our objectives of improving the condition of the moors and contributing to the multiple benefits of healthy blanket bogs
• whether the work is as cost-effective as possible
• whether a conservation technique or method is suitable to use on other sites and if so, where and how

We work in partnership with a number of universities, sharing knowledge and skills, to maximise the benefits of our research. We collaborate with universities where we can, including funding PhD and master’s projects, and hosting undergraduate work placements.

Crucially, this evidence provides us with a ‘baseline’ understanding so that we can measure changes against as our work progresses. This enables us to monitor the effects and suitability of everything we do.

Effectively monitoring what we do takes a lot of time and work. Trained volunteers help with specialist surveys, and schools and citizen science projects contribute further to the evidence we collect.