Monitoring urban greenspaces using Methuselah

 

Why bother monitoring?

Urban greenspaces are being delivered via land regeneration to deliver a range of social, economic and environmental benefits, including sustainable communities, economic regeneration, environmental improvement and conservation. The wider impacts of urban greenspace and the extent to which greenspaces deliver these benefits can only be fully captured and understood through carefully considered, integrated monitoring. Too often monitoring programmes are given low priority in project delivery and site management cycles, they are under-funded and of interest to only a limited number of stakeholders.

Monitoring is required to:

• Assess performance against aims and objectives
• Promote efficiency and effectiveness
• Demonstrate success
• Promote site
• Anticipate changes and future needs.

The evaluation criteria pertinent to the assessment of greenspace establishment and success are listed in the table below.

What is Methuselah?

Methuselah is being developed as a strategy for monitoring the sustainability of urban greenspaces in the UK and to assess their effectiveness in delivering the benefits they are purported to.

It aims to:

• Fully integrate monitoring and evaluation into the management framework for greenspace sites
• Assess the current level of monitoring and evaluation information held for an existing site, including any gaps in the knowledge base
• Assess how this data contributes to the delivery of site objectives
• Fill knowledge gaps using methods from a range of monitoring protocols (provided by Methuselah)
• Measure the wider impacts of greenspace presence and site management
• Relate the management outcomes to Government policies, targets and sustainability indicators
• Assess the effectiveness of greenspace provision at the local, regional and national scale by combining data from a number of sites
• Identify areas where further research is needed.

How will Methuselah work?

Several monitoring opportunities exist within existing greenspace establishment and management work practices. These include via:

• Project management of the land reclamation and regeneration phase of the greenspace establishment
• The site management cycle
• Research and development projects occurring at the greenspace.

Alternatively, monitoring and evaluation may be undertaken as a specific, funded activity.

The project timeline for the regeneration of land into greenspace (see the ‘Project Timeline’ diagram below) highlights that, whilst discrete, these monitoring opportunities inter-relate and may be used in support of one-another (as displayed in ‘Monitoring Opportunities’ diagram below). Methuselah endorses and strengthens the use of each of these opportunities for monitoring by considering each separately:

• Project portfolio
• Site management
• Impacts appraisal
• Research and development.

Project timeline for the regeneration of land into greenspace.
Shows the major stages in the regeneration of brownfield land to greenspace, higlighting that monitoring opportunities exist within delivery of the regeneration project, site management of the greenspace, appraisal of the greenspace, and through associated research and development.

The opportunities for monitoring and evaluation of greenspace and how these interlink.
Shows the inter-relationship between the distinct monitoring opportunities within existing greenspace establishment and management practices including: project management, site management, appraisal of impacts, and research and development.

Methuselah recognises that the aims and objectives of greenspace establishment and management can be thought of in terms of

• Inputs - resources, investment or commitment to a project
• Outputs - product, service or activity delivered directly by or through project
• Outcomes - consequences of a project, indirect output

Each requires differing extents of commitment to monitor effectively. The relationship between inputs, outputs and outcomes is shown in the diagram below.

This recognition helps to ensure that Methuselah is practical, process-based and is able to provide invaluable support to the management cycle.

Contact

For more information contact:

Kieron Doick
Forest Research
Alice Holt Lodge
Farnham
Surrey GU10 4LH

Tel: +44(0)1420 526177
Fax: +44(0)1420 520180
Email: kieron.doick@forestry.gsi.gov.uk