The recently published 2024 annual report marks the tenth year of the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS), which since its first full season in 2015 has grown to cover over 5,000 plots surveyed by more than 1,000 volunteers, yielding upwards of 250,000 botanical records that feed into the UK Biodiversity Indicators.
This UK-wide citizen science scheme aims to survey plant species across different habitats in the UK. The data collected from the survey allow us to look at the abundance and diversity of plants and help us to understand the health of different habitats. The survey was designed and developed by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, UKCEH, Plantlife and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee.
In 2024 alone, volunteer surveyors submitted data from 270 one-kilometre squares and 1,182 plots, recording 18,849 observations across 916 species or species groups. In celebration of the 10-year milestone, the 2024 Annual Report contains a number of personal viewpoints from several of the scheme’s longest serving surveyors and a timeline of the major NPMS events over the past ten years.
A major technical advance this year was the re-launch of the joint NPMS–Plant Portal mobile app—funded by Defra’s Natural Capital programme—to streamline in-field data entry for both NPMS volunteers and wider plant recorders. NPMS data continue to underpin national and continental research, contributing to ReSurveyEurope and informing emerging EU pollinator monitoring initiatives.
Visit the NPMS website to read the full report and find out more about the 10th anniversary regional events, taking place at UCL East, London (18 October) and Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, Northern Ireland (25 October).
UKCEH’s contribution to the National Plant Monitoring Scheme is funded by the National Capability for UK Challenges (NC-UK) programme.