Through a design-led partnership with a local authority, SaMPaS will innovate community involvement in processes of planning and monitoring salt marsh regeneration for coastal adaptation. The project will pilot a toolkit for collecting and sharing different types of environmental data (quantitative and qualitative) between community groups and local authorities.

Overview

SaMPaS (Salt Marsh Participatory Sensing) is a design-led project that employs digital technologies, physical computing, and experimental cartography to involve local communities in processes of planning, delivering, and monitoring salt marsh regeneration projects for coastal climate adaptation.

The academic team will work with the Engineering department at Wyre City Council, Morecambe Bay Partnership (MBP) and Lancashire Wildlife Trust (LWT) to design a toolkit, a platform, and a framework for participatory data collection. These will be tested and adopted in three key salt marsh regeneration sites in Morecambe Bay that form part of the Our Future Coast project and represent different challenges in respect to salt marsh resilience.

The outputs from the project will enable collaboration between communities and local authorities for

• Sharing local ecological, social and historical knowledge in a way that can be productive/meaningful for decision making;
• Grassroots monitoring of salt marshes;
• Ongoing resident involvement in flood resilience planning.