Pathways to socio-economic recovery in protected landscapes during the C

Title (150 words) Path­ways to socio-eco­nom­ic recov­ery in pro­tec­ted land­scapes dur­ing the COV­ID-19 pandemic

Scientific/​technical sum­mary (max 250 words) The COV­ID-19 out­break has res­ul­ted in the sud­den clos­ure of nation­al parks across the UK dur­ing Spring 2020. Re-open­ing nation­al parks will assist in the eco­nom­ic recov­ery of loc­al com­munit­ies whose income depends on these pro­tec­ted areas. It will also improve people’s men­tal and phys­ic­al health. How­ever, over­crowding incid­ents could lead to the re-emer­gence of COV­ID-19 hot­spots and dam­age to biod­iversity. In order to max­im­ise the bene­fits from re- open­ing pro­tec­ted areas and min­im­ize neg­at­ive impacts, new policy tools are required groun­ded on sci­entif­ic evid­ence and developed in col­lab­or­a­tion with loc­al stakeholders.

The pro­posed pro­ject aims to assist in this dir­ec­tion by: a) devel­op­ing pre­dict­ive mod­els estim­at­ing the max­im­um capa­city of vis­it­ors in spe­cif­ic nation­al parks con­sid­er­ing social dis­tan­cing restric­tions and loc­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics and; b) cre­at­ing new policy and man­age­ment tools, co-pro­duced with loc­al stake­hold­ers, that can pro­mote respons­ible envir­on­ment­al beha­viour in pro­tec­ted land­scapes while respect­ing social dis­tan­cing rules.

Data from per­son­al inter­views (with European and UK part­ners), sur­veys, sec­ond­ary data­bases and online par­ti­cip­at­ory work­shops will be col­lec­ted and will inform the devel­op­ment of guidelines and tools for man­aging the impact of the out­break in UK’s nation­al parks. Work will be ini­tially com­pleted in 4 sites (Sum­mer 2020) fol­lowed by an addi­tion­al 6 sites (Autumn 2020). The final aim of pro­ject will be to estab­lish optim­um approaches that per­mit these pro­tec­ted areas to stay open to the pub­lic through­out the later stages of the COV­ID-19 out­break, thereby ensur­ing the fin­an­cial recov­ery of loc­al com­munit­ies whilst also pro­tect­ing biodiversity.

3.1. Please describe and jus­ti­fy the import­ance of the COV­ID-19 related know­ledge gap and/​or need that you are tar­get­ing (max 250 words)

Nation­al Parks are extremely import­ant not just because of their high biod­iversity value but also because of the socio-eco­nom­ic bene­fits they provide. Nation­al parks play a cru­cial role for phys­ic­al and men­tal health assist­ing in the improve­ment of people’s well­being. The large num­ber of vis­it­ors that these areas attract is also a sig­ni­fic­ant source of income for loc­al com­munit­ies. Lake Dis­trict and Snow­do­nia Nation­al parks for example attract more than 15 mil­lion vis­it­ors per year. Re-open­ing nation­al parks dur­ing the COV­ID-19 out­break will be an extremely chal­len­ging task. Restric­tions on for­eign travel dur­ing 2020 and 2021 will res­ult to an increase in demand for domest­ic hol­i­days in the UK and Nation­al Parks are expec­ted to be a very pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tion. Over­crowding incid­ents dur­ing the week­end 21 – 22^nd of March when a num­ber of nation­al parks received unpre­ced­en­ted num­ber of vis­it­ors for that time of the year revealed that there is a need to man­age a high flow of vis­it­ors depend­ing on the level of restric­tions. How­ever, there is no empir­ic­al evid­ence or pri­or exper­i­ence on how beha­vi­our­al change can be achieved in order for people to be able to vis­it pro­tec­ted areas safely while prac­ti­cing social dis­tan­cing and yet not dis­turb biod­iversity if encour­aged to spread out and avoid crowded loc­a­tions. The pro­posed pro­ject aims to address this gap by: a) provid­ing for the first time research evid­ence on how respons­ible envir­on­ment­al beha­vi­our­al, when using nation­al parks, can be com­bined and bal­anced with social dis­tan­cing rules; b) estim­at­ing the max­im­um capa­city of vis­it­ors in nation­al parks depend­ing on dif­fer­ent levels of social dis­tan­cing restric­tions and loc­al socio-eco­nom­ic char­ac­ter­ist­ics; c) lead­ing to the co- pro­duc­tion (with loc­al stake­hold­ers) of a num­ber of policy and man­age­ment tools and tech­niques facil­it­at­ing the safe re-open­ing of pro­tec­ted land­scapes through­out the COV­ID-19 outbreak.

3.2. Please describe how the research impact(s) can be scaled to be use­ful to the UK as a whole (max 250 words).

The pro­ject is of the highest impact draw­ing from exper­i­ence in European sites and pro­pos­ing the co-pro­duc­tion of new solu­tions tail­or-made for UK nation­al parks and oth­er pro­tec­ted areas. The impact of the pro­ject is focused on three key issues:

Find­ing tech­niques to pro­mote respons­ible beha­viour dur­ing COV­ID-19: A num­ber of tools will be tested through the pro­ject aim­ing to pro­mote safe and respons­ible beha­viour of users in pro­tec­ted areas. Through the cre­ation of these tools it will be pos­sible to main­tain a safe and sus­tain­able flow of vis­it­ors in these areas, allow­ing loc­al eco­nom­ies to recov­er fin­an­cially after the strict lock­down without risk­ing the re-emer­gence of COV­ID-19 hotspots.

New sci­entif­ic know­ledge: The pro­ject will have sig­ni­fic­ant sci­entif­ic impact as it will provide the first evid­ence inter­na­tion­ally on how beha­vi­our­al change can be achieved dur­ing the COV­ID-19 out­break in pro­tec­ted land­scapes of both high recre­ation­al and biod­iversity value. It will provide use­ful inform­a­tion for beha­vi­our­al and social sci­ent­ists and also research­ers work­ing in the sys­tems sci­ence regard­ing the com­plex impacts of COV­ID-19 on well­being, income levels and respons­ible envir­on­ment­al and social behaviour.

Devel­op­ing new policies: A num­ber of tasks have been planned in order to ensure the pro­ject has a major impact at policy level includ­ing work­shops and online events. A mod­el developed dur­ing the pro­ject will allow prac­ti­tion­ers to eval­u­ate, depend­ing on the num­ber of vis­it­ors and the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of a par­tic­u­lar area, tip­ping points in rela­tion to COV­ID-19 hot­spots, people’s well­being, impact on the loc­al eco­nomy and human pres­sures on biod­iversity. The cre­ation of addi­tion­al guidelines and tools (i.e. videos, leaf­lets, mobile app) will be care­fully designed in order to tackle over­crowding in pro­tec­ted land­scapes and min­im­ize the risk of COV­ID-19 hot­spots. Finally, the project’s activ­it­ies will facil­it­ate the cre­ation of strategies by Nation­al Park author­it­ies across the UK aim­ing to man­age these pro­tec­ted areas dur­ing the later stages of the outbreak.

Sec­tion 4. Plan of research includ­ing import­ance deliv­er­ables and resources 4.1. (тах 1500 words) In this sec­tion you should provide an over­view of the nature of the pro­posed research or pro­ject (study design, approach and deliv­er­ables). To include: How deliv­er­ables will provide/​lead to benefit(s) relat­ing to the health, social, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al and/​or envir­on­ment­al impact of the COVID19 out­break with­in 18 months

Approach over­view and key research object­ives We pro­pose an inter­dis­cip­lin­ary approach bring­ing togeth­er expert­ise from the fields of social and beha­vi­our­al sci­ence, envir­on­ment­al policy and Bayesian stat­ist­ics. The over­all research ques­tion of the pro­ject is to explore how pro­tec­ted land­scapes, such as nation­al parks, can remain open for the pub­lic dur­ing the COV­ID-19 out­break while pre­vent­ing neg­at­ive impacts of over­crowding and facil­it­at­ing eco­nom­ic recov­ery for loc­al com­munit­ies and sus­tained health bene­fits for users.

Key Research Object­ives (RO) are: RO1: to devel­op pre­dict­ive mod­els estim­at­ing the max­im­um capa­city for vis­it­ors tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the imple­ment­a­tion of dif­fer­ent levels of social dis­tan­cing meas­ures (i.е. altern­at­ing between strict and less strict meas­ures) and loc­al socio-eco­nom­ic characteristics.

RO2: to identi­fy the most effect­ive policy tools that can lead to beha­vi­our­al change when using pro­tec­ted spaces dur­ing the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic. The tools will focus both on pro­mot­ing respons­ible envir­on­ment­al beha­viour, avoid­ing incid­ents of over­crowding risk­ing the emer­gence of COV­ID-19 hotspots.

RO3: to co-pro­duce with loc­al stake­hold­ers tools and new man­age­ment guidelines for pro­tec­ted areas dur­ing the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic aim­ing to assist in the fin­an­cial recov­ery of loc­al com­munit­ies, pro­mote human well­being while min­im­iz­ing risks of overcrowding.

The pro­ject has a dur­a­tion of 18 months and the above ROs will be explored in two stages (Table 1). Dur­ing the first stage (June-Septem­ber 2020) the research team will col­lect data and co-pro­duce tools for tack­ling over­crowding in four nation­al parks (Snow­do­nia, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, Broads, New Forest). These parks were selec­ted because they attract a large num­ber of vis­it­ors through­out the year and have exper­i­enced issues of over­crowding dur­ing the COV­ID-19 out­break res­ult­ing in restric­tions that soon will need to be revised. Col­lab­or­a­tions with key stake­hold­ers have been secured in all sites. In the second stage (Octo­ber 2020-end of pro­ject) the research team will provide sup­port to addi­tion­al pro­tec­ted areas (max­im­um of 6) across the UK in order to adopt the tools developed dur­ing the pro­ject. Exist­ing col­lab­or­a­tions and com­mu­nic­a­tions with stake­hold­ers at nation­al level (Nation­al Parks UK, Nation­al Trust) will ensure the appro­pri­ate selec­tion of case stud­ies at this stage.

Descrip­tion of Work-Pack­ages (WPs) The pro­ject will be imple­men­ted through 4 work-pack­ages res­ult­ing to 9 deliv­er­ables of high sci­entif­ic and policy impact.

WP1: Devel­op­ing pre­dict­ive car­ry­ing capa­city mod­els for vis­it­ors (RO1) A sim­u­la­tion mod­el­ling frame­work will be designed estim­at­ing the max­im­um capa­city for vis­it­ors con­sid­er­ing loc­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the park and social dis­tan­cing reg­u­la­tions. The frame­work will allow the inclu­sion of vary­ing dis­tri­bu­tions to mod­el uncer­tainty in the para­met­ers of interest. Exist­ing data will be util­ized avail­able in ​‘State of the Park’ reports along with data from the Min­istry of Trans­port and the Office of Nation­al Stat­ist­ics (i.е. well­being, income). Our meth­od­o­logy is influ­enced by exist­ing tech­niques meas­ur­ing car­ry­ing capa­city of nation­al parks (Prato, 2001) but improved through the applic­a­tion of tailored made Bayesian mod­els (appro­pri­ate soft­ware includ­ing Win­BUGS and INLA will be used at this stage). The mod­el­ing frame­work will provide pre­dic­tions on how redu­cing vis­it­ors num­bers to vari­ous degrees will impact dif­fer­ent aspects includ­ing rev­en­ues for loc­al busi­nesses and well­being levels.

Deliv­er­ables 1.1. Sim­u­la­tion mod­el­ling frame­work pub­licly avail­able (after the ini­tial test­ing) through the web­site of the pro­ject. 1.2. Short reports pub­licly avail­able on the res­ults of the mod­el pro­duced for the research sites in stages 1 (4 sites) and 2 (6 sites).

WP2: Explor­ing appro­pri­ate tools pro­mot­ing beha­vi­our­al change (RO2, months) Inter­views (on-line) with key stake­hold­ers will be com­pleted with rep­res­ent­at­ives of European organ­isa­tions that have already tested dif­fer­ent tools to man­age the out­break in pro­tec­ted land­scapes (European Pro­ject part­ners). These will be fol­lowed by inter­views with loc­al stake­hold­ers from the pilot sites (10−12 inter­views in each site). The res­ults will feed into the mod­el­ling frame­work and the pre­par­a­tion of guidelines and tools for man­aging the impacts of COV­ID-19. The inter­views will provide an insight on altern­at­ive tools that are real­ist­ic to be applied in pro­tec­ted land­scapes depend­ing on UK policy and man­age­ment char­ac­ter­ist­ics. Data from the inter­views will be ana­lysed using N‑Vivo by exper­i­enced research­ers (Dr James McGin­lay, Mrs Vic­tor­ia Maguire, 1 research assistant).

Loc­al com­munit­ies liv­ing in or near the bound­ar­ies of the nation­al parks will be invited to par­ti­cip­ate in a short online sur­vey (using Qual­trics) provid­ing their feed­back on pro­posed tools and changes in the man­age­ment of pro­tec­ted areas. Loc­als will be invited via announce­ments in loc­al inform­a­tion boards, social media and postal cards sent to 5% sample of the pop­u­la­tion. A vis­it­ors’ sur­vey will also be con­duc­ted across the UK (sample of 10,000, par­ti­cipants selec­ted using exist­ing pools from sur­vey com­pan­ies such as UK Gov) aim­ing to explore their views on a num­ber of pro­posed changes when vis­it­ing nation­al parks. All sur­vey data will be ana­lysed using tra­di­tion­al and advanced stat­ist­ic­al tech­niques (with SPSS, R, Win­Bugs) in order to identi­fy pref­er­ences in the pro­posed tools but also to explore the key socio-eco­nom­ic factors explain­ing these preferences.

Deliv­er­ables

2.1. Policy report ana­lys­ing the dif­fer­ent options avail­able for nation­al parks and oth­er pro­tec­ted areas in order to man­age vis­it­ors num­bers and people’s beha­viour in the next 2 years.

WP3: Co-pro­du­cing and mon­it­or­ing guidelines and tools to man­age over­crowding in pro­tec­ted land­scapes (RO3) After the com­ple­tion of the inter­views one-day work­shops (using Zoom soft­ware) will be organ­ised with par­ti­cipants from the four sites and prac­ti­tion­ers from UK and European organ­isa­tions involved in the man­age­ment of Pro­tec­ted Areas. The aim of the work­shops will be: a) to dis­cuss the res­ults of the pre­dict­ive mod­el­ling and sur­veys; b) decide on spe­cif­ic guidelines and tolls which would be appro­pri­ate in each loc­a­tion in order to man­age the impact of the out­break in the next 18 months. The devel­op­ment of the guidelines and tools will be led by Dr Jones, Dr McGin­lay and Dr Holtvoeth.

The tools will be tested in the pilot sites and will be closely mon­itored for a dur­a­tion of 3 months. Mon­it­or­ing will hap­pen through: • A mobile applic­a­tion developed and made avail­able to vis­it­ors and loc­als which will act as a portal of inform­a­tion and data col­lec­tion regard­ing com­pli­ance with new reg­u­la­tions and incid­ents of over­crowding. Through the applic­a­tions users will be able to spe­cify the areas where incid­ents of over­crowding hap­pen along with incid­ents where social dis­tan­cing meas­ures could not be met accord­ing to the new recom­mend­a­tions. • Non-par­ti­cipant obser­va­tions. A research­er will vis­it the sites for 2 weeks every month between the 4^th and 6^th month of the pro­ject and observe vis­it­ors in key loc­a­tions of the nation­al parks. The research­er will record com­pli­ance levels but also explore wheth­er cer­tain tools are more effi­cient than others.

Deliv­er­ables: 3.1. Pub­licly avail­able report on the effect­ive­ness of dif­fer­ent meas­ures applied 3.2. Mobile applic­a­tion used by vis­it­ors and loc­als to provide feed­back and util­ised as a portal for over­crowding notifications

WP4: Dis­sem­in­at­ing the res­ults of the pro­ject and rolling out the tools in pro­tec­ted areas across the UK (RO 1 – 4) The data col­lec­ted in WP2 will provide sig­ni­fic­ant inform­a­tion for prac­ti­tion­ers and the research team on the suc­cess of the tools and the level of com­pli­ance. ii) be com­bined with oth­er para­met­ers and data in order to under­stand the key factors that lead to over­crowding and non com­pli­ance; iii) will assist in the improve­ment of the mod­el­ling frame­work developed in WP1.

Dur­ing the second stage of the pro­ject (from Septem­ber 2020 onwards) the tools will gradu­ally be refined and final­ised and will be ready to be rolled out to oth­er sites across the UK inter­ested in man­aging over­crowding in the long-term. The research team will be able to

sup­port up to six nation­al parks with one to one meet­ings dur­ing this stage. Dis­sem­in­a­tion of the new guidelines and tools will be achieved in the fol­low­ing ways focus­ing both on users and man­age­ment organ­isa­tions: • devel­op­ment of short videos pro­mot­ing respons­ible use of pro­tec­ted land­scapes • pro­mo­tion­al cam­paign via social media (twit­ter, face­book) • pro­ject web­site • media reports in nation­al and loc­al news­pa­pers • 3 on-line pro­mo­tion­al events • aca­dem­ic publications

Deliv­er­ables 4.1. Web­site of the pro­ject 4.2. Devel­op­ment of short videos dis­trib­uted through social media explain­ing safe and respons­ible use of pro­tec­ted land­scapes 4.3. 3 On-line events pro­mot­ing the use of the tools in pro­tec­ted landscapes

4.4. Three open-access pub­lic­a­tions report­ing a) the meth­od­o­logy of the sim­u­la­tion mod­el; b) the res­ults of inter­views and sur­veys and c) the res­ults of the mon­it­or­ing process.

Table 1. Timetable of the project

Task descrip­tion	1 – 3	4 – 6	7 – 9	10 – 12	13 – 16	17 – 18
Pre­dict­ive mod­els & simulation	X	X	X
Inter­views and data analysis	X	X	X
Sur­veys and data analysis	X	X	X
Work­shops			X
Mobile mon­it­or­ing application				X
Non-par­ti­cipant observations				X
Web­site & updates	X	X	X	X	X	X
On-line events				X	X	X
Rolling out tools to oth­er parks			X	X	X	X
Pub­lic­a­tions				X	X	X

Innov­a­tion and unique­ness of the pro­ject Des­pite the sig­ni­fic­ant and com­plex prob­lems that COV­ID-19 will cause to the socio- eco­nom­ic and eco­lo­gic­al sys­tems of pro­tec­ted land­scapes, cur­rently only gen­er­al guidelines exist about social dis­tan­cing in green spaces (e.g. Nat­ur­al Eng­land web­site). While sev­er­al man­age­ment author­it­ies of pro­tec­ted areas are cur­rently encour­aging vis­it­ors to stay away it is clear that long-term strategies need to be developed in order for these areas to remain open to the pub­lic and assist in the fin­an­cial recov­ery of loc­al com­munity. Cur­rently no sci­entif­ic evid­ence exists regard­ing the effect­ive­ness of altern­at­ive tools in pro­mot­ing respons­ible use

of pro­tec­ted areas. The pro­posed pro­ject aims to cov­er this gap provid­ing the first sci­entif­ic evid­ence on which are the optim­um tools to be applied in order vis­it­ors to enjoy pro­tec­ted land­scapes in a way that does not pose risks for loc­al com­munit­ies. The pro­ject will provide clear guid­ance in col­lab­or­a­tion with loc­al stake­hold­ers on how to tackle the impacts of COV­ID-19 con­sid­er­ing the com­plex links between dif­fer­ent policy tar­gets: pro­tect­ing biod­iversity, ensur­ing economic/​financial recov­ery of loc­al com­munit­ies, improv­ing human well­being and pre­vent­ing the re-emer­gence of COV­ID 19 hotspots.