Special quality: Tranquility & Dark night skies
# Potential impacts of climate change
# Climate projection: Drier summers
# Effect: Higher visitor numbers
# Potential impacts:
- Increased erosion across all landscapes and features, from abandoned places of industry to woodland
- Litter and wildfire risk on high open moorlands could increase
- Disturbance of sensitive species, in particular by visitors with dogs
- Wildlife encounters may be better in some areas as animals get used to higher volumes of people
# Effect: Increased periods of drought
# Potential impacts:
- Increased demand for water abstraction in the limestone dales
- Pressure placed on waterways could negatively impact visitor facilities and affect the aesthetics of rivers and streams that people want to visit
- Some affected areas may become less desirable to visit or have issues with visitor capacity
- Erosion rates of peat in the high open moorland coupled with changes to plant composition may alter desirability for recreational use in some areas
- Visual changes may be prominent in lowland pastoral landscapes, limestone dales and woodlands
- Wildlife inhabiting these landscapes could be affected, with some species being lost or temporarily moving elsewhere in search for water
- Aesthetics may change but the overall tranquillity and dark night skies are unlikely to be affected
# Climate projection: Combined effects
# Effect: Land use change
# Potential impacts:
- Farming economics may bring about shifts in stocking levels and management techniques which could change the landscape character and alter the visitor experience and sense of escape
# Effect: Increased threat from pathogens and pests
# Potential impacts:
- The effect of ash dieback disease in woodlands may be accelerated due to increased stress
- Other plant diseases such as Phytophthora may become more prevalent, placing the long-term health and diversity of some habitats at risk
- Landscape aesthetics may be altered as trees and hedgerows are lost or damaged
# Effect: Climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts increase
# Potential impacts:
- Increased pressure for the introduction of renewable energy sources such as wind farms, solar panels and hydro electric generators.
- Noise levels and visual impact could affect the visitor experience
- Woodland planting may be used to increase carbon sequestration and to aid flood management
- Moorland restoration efforts in the Dark Peak and South West Peak may be in higher demand to reduce flood risk downstream
- Moorland and woodland habitats would be enhanced, providing spaces that are more resilient and enabling visitors to enjoy tranquillity and dark night skies
# Climate projection: Hotter summers
# Effect: Higher visitor numbers
# Potential impacts:
- Increased visitor pressure on infrastructure at popular locations
- Some areas are likely to lose their calm, quiet atmosphere at peak times
- Reduction of sense of wilderness that attracts many visitors in the first place
- Increased recreational pressure near waterways and under trees as people seek cool and shaded places
- Opportunities for more outdoor events
- Larger numbers of cars and changes to lighting could affect light pollution levels reducing the quality of dark night skies
# Climate projection: Increased storm events
# Effect: Intense rainfall, strong winds, and flooding
# Potential impacts:
- Erosion may damage abandoned places of industry such as mining features, and moorland edges in the uplands
- Wind throw damage to woodlands
- Visitor access and outdoor events affected
- Changes to landscape aesthetics and visitor access could affect the visitor experience and the sense of tranquillity people find