Analysis
The annotated photographs give a representative picture of what each area is like. The photos reinforce the colour description of the area on the map. The table below provides more detail as to the type of environment of each area.
Analysis
This map of located proportional pie charts shows the average amount of people sited at the areas on two occasions and also the activities of these people. The largest circle representing the largest amount of people was located at Dodnor Creek, representing five people seen within a period of five minutes on two separate occasions. The majority of people (2) used this area for fishing due to its location on the estuary. Also present were residents and a dog walker. This is the sort of result expected as this is very close to a house and residential area. This being an environmental area, which is evident in the photos (Fig.1) from key question 1, and having the highest number of people may raise the question of whether the environmental quality will suffer and has exceeded its carrying capacity.
The Stag Lane, Dodnor Hard and MTF sites each had four people sited however with slightly differing activities. The Dodnor Hard area had 2 walkers and 2 dog walkers this is again likely tio be due to the fact that the land uses here are largely residential.
The results shown from the Stag Lane and MTF areas are also representative of the land uses there; they both show two dog walkers a walker and a cyclist. This is because at both sites the cycle path runs through. Due to Stag Lanes more industrial land use it would be expected to receive more vehicles related to this, however due to sampling this could have been overlooked. At the MVC there were three dog walkers found walking along the waterfront. I wouldn’t have expected this area to have the least amount of people due to it land use as an educational centre.
The number of people between the areas does not vary greatly although it would be expected that more people be found along the cycle path due to it being a popular commuter route into Newport.
The activities of the people sited seem to be mostly related to the type of land use in the area.
Analysis
These proportional circles show the amount of litter compared to the amount of birds at each site. The amount of litter is a good indication of the quality of the environment; high amounts of litter would indicate a poor environmental quality. A poor environmental quality is likely to mean less abundant wildlife including birds. It can be seen from looking at the bars that generally a large amount of litter for example at Stag Lane where there were huge piles of litter there are much less birds especially compared to other areas. However the majority of birds in other areas are Herring gulls, which are not as likely to be found at Stag Lane because it is not located directly next to the estuary as are the other sites where these birds are found.
The MTF, MVC and Dodnor Hard areas all have very minimal amounts of litter suggesting a high environmental quality, which is reflected by the huge numbers of birds.
An exception to this seems to be Dodnor Creek, which, although it has fairly low amounts of litter, the amount of birds is low. Other factors may account for this; if we refer back to the people count this area had the highest amount of people, which could cause disturbance to the birds.
Also this area is a slightly different environment, it is an area, which has reeds for wildfowl to hide amongst, and few seemed to come into the open water
The other areas all show large amounts of estuary birds, which are less likely to be found at Stag Lane and Dodnor Creek, as they are different environments. It appears that the industrial action taking place at the MTF could have an effect on the number of birds, as it seems lower than it should be from looking at the MVC and Dodnor Creek, which are similar environments.
Looking back to the people count the MVC had the least amount of people and this should mean less disturbance to the birds and may explain the huge amounts of birds at this area and also the low amounts of litter. It would be expected that if an area is used less then less litter would be found there. However this does not seem to be a strong correlation as shown by the scatter graph below. Perhaps if more sampling was done a positive correlation may appear.
Analysis
This chlorepleth map represents the scores gained at each site for the bi-polar assessment, the darker the colour the higher the score and therefore the better the environmental quality. Also located on the map are bar graphs showing the scores for the industrial and recreational potential surveys.
The area with the lowest bi-polar score appears to be around the stag lane area, and also the north end of Dodnor Creek at the location of the derelict cement factory. As can be seen from the photographs fig. 1 and fig 5 in key question one these areas are unsightly due to the derelict buildings and industry-taking place.
From this point onwards towards the MTF the bi-polar score and therefore the environmental quality of the area seems to increase. The area with the best environmental quality is the area just to the south of Dodnor Creek. This area scored highly due to the lack of development on this site, it consists of part of the estuary and grassland, with no industry to lower the visual quality of the area. The MVC and MTF both scored lower than Dodnor Hard on the bi-polar assessment which is likely to be due to their more intrusive land uses, the MVC as an educational centre and NEG Micron at the MTF which both adds noise and visual pollution and therefore would lower the environmental quality.
The fact that the environmental quality seems to increase closer to the MTF could lead to the hypothesis that the greater the distance from the MTF the lower the bi-polar score and therefore environmental quality. This can be tested using spearman’s rank to see how closely linked these piece of data are.
looking at industrial and recreational potential will tell us what the potential is for developing the area. A high potential for development would indicate that the area is not in need of conservation and therefore may not be of a high environmental quality.
It is apparent from looking at the chloropleth map that industrial potential doesn’t always indicate what the bi-polar suggests. For example the bi-polar suggests that Dodnor Creek is not an area with high environmental quality although it is a SSSI. The recreational and industrial potential survey suggests that it has low development potential. However the bi-polar score is considerably lower than it should be due to the visual impact of the derelict cement factory and crumbling causeway. However this area is protected from development by law due to its ideal habitat for a range of wildlife, which is shown by the lack of potential for development. All the other areas show similar levels of medium potential suggesting the environmental quality is lower despite fairly high levels scored on the bi-polar.
I would have expected that a high bi-polar score would indicate low potential but other factors such as flatness of the land rather than environmental quality are taken into account when deciding suitability for development, which the bi-polar does not. Flat land would increase suitability for development.
Analysis – Spearman’s Rank
The hypothesis is that the closer to the MTF the better the environment due to better managed land use. (As the distance from the MTF increases the environmental quality will decrease.)
Spearman’s Rank coefficient =
N = number of paired sets of data (15)
= 1- 4509
3360
= 1- 1.34196…
= -0.34196…
The result of –0.34 is a negative correlation which supports the hypothesis. Even though there is a relationship –0.34 shows a very weak one meaning it is not an obvious pattern and there are flaws evident e.g. some areas do not follow the pattern for example the area just north of Dodnor creek.
Conclusion
The aim of my investigation was to asses the environmental impact the changing land uses have on the environment along the west bank of the River Medina and subsequently what action may need to be taken to manage protect this area. The Hypothesis was that the closer to the MTF would be an environment of poor quality due to high levels of activity and a visually intrusive development.
The table below shows what was found from each data collection for the three key questions.
Overall it can be concluded that the land uses do have a large impact on the environmental quality of the surrounding area. The stag Lane area demonstrates a poor environmental quality due to its derelict and some active industry. This discourages wildlife and leaves the area in a poor condition. In contrast with this is the MTF and MVC, which has been developed on but has been managed in such a way that the impact on the environment is low and wildlife is still fairly abundant. This demonstrates the importance of good management in maintaining a good quality environment. The apparent low bi-polar score at Dodnor creek could be due to poor management not the fact that the use of the area is causing it s carrying capacity to be exceeded. The MTF is an example of how industry and conservation can be compatible. The management is clearly evident at the MTF, the gates have been painted green to blend in and a type of path, which allows vegetation growth through it, has been used so it is more aesthetically pleasing rather than intrusive like at stag lane. It has become evident from this investigation that while land use does have an affect on the environment with management industry and conservation could be more compatible such as the MTF as an example of this. This is the type of viewpoint they need to adopt to improve the environmental quality of areas like Stag Lane.
Evaluation
The methodology could provide inaccurate results as, if the data collection technique is no sufficient or valid this will lead to inaccurate data presentation and therefore the conclusions that are drawn from this. By analysing their limitations we can judge to what extent the conclusion is valid, and how they could be improved for a future study.
Due to the limitations of the data collection the strength of the conclusions drawn can be undermined. As stated in the previous table there are a number of things that can be done to improve the validity of my conclusion.
It emerged in my conclusion that while land uses do have an impact on the environmental quality of the area this is worsened by neglect. Management and conservation is key in maintaining an environmental area. It would therefore have been useful to carry out a management survey , this would have given me more detail to the type of management taking place, this could have then been compared to the environmental bi-polar score to see if there was a correlation, the results from this may have added strength and better evidence for my conclusion.
However strength to the investigation, which gave good evidence to support the conclusion, was using the bird and litter count together. The litter count gives an idea to the amount of management and bird numbers are a good indication of the environmental quality. Overall I would say the investigation was reliable as I used a variety of techniques to investigate the environmental impact of the land uses and the results gained may not have supported my original hypothesis but showed good evidence to disprove it and support the final conclusion.
Analysis
These maps are vital for answering Key question two as it answers the question directly in showing what land uses there are. The three different maps from 1962, 1996 and 2004 show how the land uses have changed; this information is presented in the table below.
Litter count
Bird count
Site
Time Weather
Disturbances
Contents table
Bibliography and Appendix
Geog dictionary?
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