Anglia Ruskin University

Team:
Dr Francine Hughes and Pete Stroh

Funding:
The main source of funding for this work has been from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation in the form of two grants: £130,000 (April 2007-March 2010) and £90,000 (April 2010 - December 2012). In addition, funding from the Environment Agency has enabled the purchase of hydrological equipment for installation at both the Wicken Fen Vision and at the Great Fen.

Project partners:

Colleague	Organisation
Alan Bowley	Natural England
Chris Gerrard	Wildlife Trust
Paul Jose	Huntingdonshire District Council
Owen Mountford	Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Lorna Parker	Wildlife Trust
Lesley Saint	Environment Agency
Stuart Warrington	National Trust
Nick McWilliam	Anglia Ruskin University & Oryx mapping
Geoff Smith	Specto-Natura
Peter Kirby	Independent Invertebrate Consultant

Project description:
Two landscape-scale wetland creation projects are underway in the east of England, linking small areas of high biodiversity in National Nature Reserves (NNRs) with adjacent ex- arable land, now under conversion to wetland and other habitats.

• The Wicken Fen 100-year Vision, led by the National Trust, aims to create 5,300 hectares of new habitat between Wicken Fen NNR and north Cambridge. A large part of this area is planned to be wetland habitat.
• The Great Fen Project is a partnership between the Environment Agency, Natural England, Huntingdonshire District Council, and the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Peterborough Wildlife Trust. The project aims to create 3,700 ha of mixed habitat including significant areas of wetland between and around Woodwalton Fen NNR and Holme Fen NNR in Huntingdonshire.

The Wicken Fen Vision in particular is using novel approaches to wetland habitat creation by encouraging the development of dynamic vegetation mosaics in response to natural regeneration, grazing by low-intensity, semi-natural herds of horses and cattle and water table fluctuations. As a result, there are no obvious 'reference' habitats against which habitat creation can be measured. Such large-scale and 'open-ended' restoration approaches demand new monitoring and evaluation approaches and the design and testing of these approaches are the focus of this 6-year research project. The monitoring protocols being designed and tested involve data collection by both professional staff and volunteers.

Outputs:
The outputs from this project are in the form of both academic papers and publications produced for volunteers and the other partners involved in the project.

Publications and reports

Martay, B. Hughes, F.M.R. and Doberski, J. (in press) A comparison of created and ancient fenland using ground beetles as a measure of conservation value. Insect Conservation and Diversity

Hughes, F.M.R., Stroh, P., Adams, W.A. Kirby, K. Mountford, J.O., Warrington, S. (in press) Monitoring and evaluating large-scale, open-ended habitat creation projects: a journey rather than a destination. Journal for Nature Conservation doi:10.1016/j.jnc.2011.02.003

Stroh, P. and Hughes, F.M.R. (2010) Practical approaches to wetland monitoring: Guidelines for landscape-scale, long-term projects. 45pp

Stroh, P. A., Hughes, F.M.R., Sparks, T. and Mountford, J.O. (2010) 'The influence of time on the soil seed bank and vegetation across a landscape-scale wetland restoration project'. Restoration Ecology DOI: 10.1111/j.1526-100X.2010.00740.x

Hughes, F.M.R., Stroh, P., Mountford, J.O., Warrington, S., Gerrard, C. and Jose, P. (2008) Monitoring large-scale wetland restoration projects: Is there an end in sight? in P. Carey (ed.) Landscape Ecology and Conservation. Proceedings of the 15 Annual Conference of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (UK Chapter), Cambridge, UK, September 8-11 , 2008 p.170-179.

'Gathering Evidence'; a Monitoring project publicity leaflet (2010)

Smith, G. (2010). An analysis of FCIR aerial photographs at Wicken Fen Vision and the Great Fen Project. A report to Anglia Ruskin University.

Kirby, P. (2010). Wicken Fen Vision and Great Fen Invertebrate surveys 2009. A report to Anglia Ruskin University.

Conference papers

Hughes, F.M.R., Stroh, P.A. and Adams, W.M. (2010). 'Monitoring and evaluating large-scale, open-ended habitat creation projects: the example of the Wicken Vision Project', Cambridgeshire, UK. 7th European Conference on Ecological Restoration, Avignon, France. August 23-27.

Stroh, P. A., Hughes, F.M.R., Sparks, T. and Mountford, J.O. (2010). 'The influence of time on the soil seed bank and vegetation across a landscape-scale wetland restoration project'. 7th European Conference on Ecological Restoration, Avignon, France. August 23-27.

Smith, G., Stroh, P., Hughes, F.M.R. and McWilliams, N., (2010). Scene components aggregation as a means of characterising landscape objects with very high spatial resolution data. In: The proceeding of the GEOBIA2010 Conference, Ghent, Belgium, 29 June - 2 July.

Hughes, F.M.R. and Stroh, P. (2010) 'How do we restore habitats at a landscape scale?' Invited speakers at Natural England workshop on 'landscape-scale habitat restoration', Birmingham, February 26.

Smith, G., Hughes, F., Stroh, P. and McWilliams, N., (2009). The aggregation of scene components within landscape features as a way of automating the analysis of very high spatial resolution data. In: Object based landscape analysis (OBLA), A Two-day meeting of the RSPSoc Land Cover/Land Use SIG, Abstracts Booklet, Nottingham, 7 - 8 April.

Hughes, F.M.R., Stroh, P., Mountford, J.O., Warrington, S., Gerrard, C. and Jose, P. (2008). 'Monitoring large-scale wetland restoration projects: Is there an end in sight?' International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) conference, September 8-11, Cambridge, UK.

Useful Links:
The Great Fen Project www.greatfen.org.uk
The Wicken Fen Vision www.wicken.org.uk

Further Information:
For more information about this project please email Francine Hughes at Francine.Hughes@anglia.ac.uk or Peter Stroh at Peter.Stroh@anglia.ac.uk