Special quality: Tranquility & Dark night skies
# Undeveloped places of tranquillity and dark night skies within reach of millions
# Description of special quality
Bounded by large towns and cities on all sides, the PDNP has a unique position as a rural landscape accessible by a large urban population. This special quality recognises the PDNP’s great opportunity, as the UK’s first and most accessible national park. While not a true wilderness unchanged by human settlement, the PDNP has some dark skies and places that feel completely isolated. These are easily experienced by visitors from the surrounding built-up areas and across the UK. Tranquillity may also be found in some traditional landscapes of the PDNP, providing a contrast to busy modern life.
Features in this category: Open access land and public access, Transport links into the National Park, Abandoned places of industry, Estate lands and designed landscapes, Lowland pastoral landscapes, High open moorland and edges, Limestone dales, Woodlands
Below is a summary of the some of the more significant impacts that climate change could have on this special quality.
# Overall vulnerability of special quality
This special quality is highly vulnerable to climate change. Of the eight special quality features assessed, no features were rated as ‘very high’ on our scale, however 75% were rated as ‘high’. A further 13% have been rated as ‘moderate’, and 13% were given a ‘low’ rating. Extremes of drought or flooding, along with storm damage, are some of the key factors likely to affect undeveloped places of tranquillity and dark night skies in the PDNP.
Additionally, poor or variable current condition has contributed to most of the features being rated as ‘high’ in terms of overall vulnerability to climate change. Current condition is usually due to non-climate factors. Past and current changes in land use leave cultural landscapes such as abandoned places of industry and geological features such as moorland edges particularly vulnerable to erosion, with follow-on nutrient flushing effects into the wider landscape.
Modelling shows small fragments of woodland with low species diversity may be lost from the PDNP. However, climate change mitigation such as woodland creation could help offset this. Transport links have the lowest vulnerability to climate change, although they may still be susceptible to extreme weather events that limit access into the PDNP. Warmer weather that sees increased visitor numbers is likely to affect the tranquility levels of many locations.