Category
Wildlife monitoring schemes
Capabilities
NPMS provides leadership, coordination, expert support and underlying infrastructure (including a mobile app) to enable volunteer surveyors to identify and record plant species distributions and abundance. The NPMS provides an annual survey of 1km squares of British and Irish grids, selected through a stratified-random selection process. Fixed plots (square of linear plots) are setup within 1km squares, within target habitats (28 categories). Participants record a set of indicator plants of the full species complement within survey plots, aiming for at least 5 plots per 1km square. As of 2021, over 1100 participants contribute to the NPMS and over 16,000 habitat samples have been collected. The NPMS provides a UK biodiversity indicator 'C7 Plants of the wider countryside'.
Lifecycle
The NPMS was established in 2015 to provide annual surveys of plants, with some earlier data through a pilot phase.
Uniqueness
NPMS is complementary to the UKCEH Countryside Survey but unique in a focus on rarer habitats. It is the only volunteer-based (i.e. citizen science) national programme for monitoring plant communities.
Access
NPMS data are published annually through the UKCEH Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC).
Location
The UKCEH contribution to NPMS is co-ordinated from The Biological Records Centre at UKCEH Wallingford and operates across the UK.
Funding sources
NPMS funding sources include: JNCC; UKRI-NERC research grants; NERC National Capability LTSS UK-SCaPE programme.
Users
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Users of NPMS include: Defra (National Pollinator Strategy) and researchers (studying, for example: enviromental change; insect decline; chemicals in the environment).
Last updated
26 October 2022 17:56
