Peatland Survey Framework 2025

This is award of a framework for the supply of Peatland surveys. This requirement facilitates delivery of peatland restoration NRW work areas.

The requirement comprises various surveys of forestry and peatlands and our requirements are broken down into four distinct topics: Afforested Peat surveys of Forest stands on Deep peat and assessment of restoration potential base on specification in Lot 1 Hydrological survey and conceptual understanding of all peatland types (not only those on afforested land). Specification Lot 2 Vegetation/peat condition surveys of all peatland types (not only those on afforested land).

Specification Lot 3 Protected Species ( Water Vole) surveys and advice Lot 4 NRW also require other general survey works, e.g. peat depth surveys, GIS interpretation on the ground ( e.g. marking out of mapped interventions on the ground), and other wider surveys that inform the distribution and character of peatlands across Wales, that may or may not be on the WGWE.

Below we detail the specifics of the most technical element of this work, which is the assessment of the WGWE. The programme (and NRW more widely) has a range of hydrological assessment and monitoring requirements for peatland and related terrestrial wetland ecosystems.

This specification identifies and characterises the main categories of work required under this lot. Provision of robust data for assessing the effectiveness of restoration techniques, thus enabling an adaptive approach to restoration Data compatibility with the equivalent national monitoring programmes developed in Scotland and England Provision of data to enable the development of a peatland restoration biodiversity metric, an element in NRWs proposals for expanding the National Peatland Action Programm Provision of information to help calibrate activities data captured for sites lacking on-the-ground monitoring evidence by improving our understanding of restoration effect sizes the zone of surrounding peatland benefitting from rewetting a ditch or gulley The evidence obtained will contribute to improving understanding of the recovery time of peatland vegetation and habitats following restoration and thus inform the development of evidence-based restoration trajectories Provision of up-to-date condition data to support other key NRW reporting requirements, notably NRWs protected sites monitoring programme, SoNaRR (State of Natural Environment Reporting; NRW, 2022) and reporting on the status of Annex 1 habitats and species under the post-Brexit Habitats Regulations (Regulation 9a).

Natural Resources Wales is responsible for developing and implementing Wales’s first National Peatlands Action Programme (NPAP). The purpose of this programme is to restore peatland ecosystems across Wales, with a focus in the first five years of the programme on six priority action themes.

The program has identified a need to undertake Water vole Arvicola amphibius surveys across a high proportion of its peatland restoration sites, both in terms of pre-restoration site assessments, preparing mitigation plans and license applications, and post restoration monitoring. This specification identifies and characterises the main categories of work required under this lot