2.1 Purpose and use of surveys

Surveys

1
Why do a survey?
Supplies key information on path conditions and potential, monitoring and funding. Does the project merit a survey?
Consult with potential partners, and assess funding.
Project manager
2
Plan your survey.
Choose type of survey — green, amber, red methods and outputs. H&S and resources.
Consult SMiF, select personell/consultants. Aims and objectives. Apply for funding.
Project manager and partners.
3
Green surveys and assessement.
Desk analysis of location, setting and route. Designations, assess access and materials.
Consult owner, SNH, Councils, users etc. Research existing information on path.
Project manager/consultant and partners.
4
Amber surveys.
Obtain detailed information on path description — location, vegetation and type. Measurements — assess condition.
Enter data and produce report.
Project manager/ surveyor/ consultant.
5
Red surveys.
Obtain pictorial record of path and pictorial description of work required.
Note map references in detail, work required and estimate time and cost.
Project manager/ surveyor/ consultant.
6
Scottish Mountain Footpath Inventory
Consult information on database of all mountains north of Highland Boundary Fault.
Produce reports on relevant paths, area or surveys.
Project manager/ surveyor/ consultant.

Introduction

Surveys, and the information gleaned from them, are used in various areas of our lives: property surveys help us make decisions about the purchase of property; land-based surveys may be used to produce maps; visitor surveys may be used to identify visitor requirements and aid planning decisions, and so on. They are generally undertaken in order to allow people to make informed choices and/or to proceed in a logical and planned way.

The following section provides some introductory information about different footpath survey techniques used in Scotland and some tips on managing survey projects. It also reflects the way in which path survey projects are managed; that is, the commissioning organisation or individual is not usually the field surveyor as well. There are therefore at least two tiers of management: those that manage the survey project and those that manage the path survey fieldwork.

Whatever the scale of the project, whether it is a specification to be used for the repair of a couple of hundred metres of path or a large-scale, area-based path condition survey, there are a number of common principles which should be considered when designing survey methods. The three standard techniques adopted by the the Upland Path Advisory Group (UPAG) are described. No matter which technique you use, a standard method, a customised method or a completely different method, it must provide the information that you require in a useful format.

For the purposes of this manual, methodologies adopted as standard in the Lake District, and Three Peaks and on National Trails south of the border are not described because they have not been widely used in Scotland and are described in some detail elsewhere.

Surveys are, by their nature, speculative. You will have to decide whether it is worth devoting resources to a survey for a project that may or may not come to fruition. This will depend on the resources required to undertake a survey, the resources that are available to you or your organisation, how important your organisation perceives the project to be and the likelihood of the project being successful. You should know the resources necessary for the survey and those available to your organisation before the survey, and, by canvassing the opinion of relevant organisations and individuals, you should at least get an idea of whether a project is likely to attract the support more required to succeed. Despite the speculative nature of this stage of project development, there are a variety of organisations that will provide resources for this stage.

Footpath surveys context and use

In the context of footpath management, surveys should form an integral part of project planning. They should provide objective information about the physical resource and about the attitudes of users, which will be considered during various decision-making processes in conjunction with other factors. In particular they should be used to:

It is obviously possible, but patently impractical, to collect an infinite amount of information about path condition and the work required to maintain them, or about visitors’ attitudes to path management, etc. It is therefore important to ensure that surveys are designed to fulfil your own particular requirements, and you may need to draw on different types of information during various stages of a project. Indeed, it is quite common for different levels of survey to be undertaken as a project develops and as different information is required, and this may be desirable as well as unavoidable. However, it is important at the project planning stage to consider how to collect information in as efficient a way as possible and to decide what information you need to collect.

A variety of survey methodologies have been used throughout Scotland over the past 15 years, and this partly reflects the disparate and random nature of path management during that time. However, more recently, UPAG has developed three standardised methods, Red, Amber and Green, depending on the level of detail required. In addition, the Scottish Mountain Footpath Inventory (SMiFI) holds information about the footpath resource over much of Scotland and data collected at the Amber level can be directly compared from area to area and path by path.

The information collected usually, although not always, corresponds with various stages of a project as, and if, the project progresses. It is important to note that the overall size of a project also has a bearing on the information collected.

Surveys of the physical resource can be undertaken to collect various levels of information. The three levels of survey developed by UPAG are:

It may be possible to amalgamate two or even three of these stages.

A Green survey is largely desk based and consists of analysing photographic records and producing a written record assessing the condition of the path, using information from path users and local land managers. There is a level of subjectivity involved in this process, but nevertheless this information is extremely useful at the initial stages of a project. If there is little support at this stage from key organisations and individuals, there may be little point in progressing.

If the conclusions drawn from the Green survey are positive, an Amber survey may follow, especially on larger-scale projects. On smaller-scale projects this stage is often omitted.

An Amber survey is particularly useful when surveying a number of paths. It is about current and projected path condition and may provide outline costs. It provides information about path management requirements, the costs of their implementation and the condition and physical setting of paths. It can also be used as baseline information for monitoring change over time. Information from an Amber survey can be used to support funding applications and also to monitor the effectiveness of path management.

Specification surveys should communicate clearly and effectively the work that is required and the location of works. Site drawings should be referenced to a bill of quantity, which details construction requirements, style of work and should accurately describe the finished product. If specifications and bills of quantity are to be used as tender documents, they should contain enough detail to provide a ‘level playing field’, and there should be no ambiguities.

A Red survey uses site sketches referenced to a bill of quantity and is described in more detail in Section 2.5. Standards used in the bill of quantity also refer to those described in the Upland Pathwork: Construction Standards for Scotland manual. Although there are other ways of specifying work, this is the method most often used in Scotland and one which most competent contractors are familiar with.

Traditionally other methods of specifying work include:

As better methods of specifying work have evolved, offering greater clarity it is preferable to utilise these.

Path repair contractors tend to have little involvement with either Green or Amber surveys. Most, if not all, of their work will be based on Red surveys. They are used during the tendering and construction phase and for post-contract appraisal. (Detailed information about Red surveys is contained in Section 2.5.)

Owing to the nature of upland path work, specifications do not usually contain as much detail as, for example, Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) standards. Financial considerations alone would not permit such detail, and the materials commonly used in construction do not lend themselves to such rigorous specification. Due to the use of coarse materials and the necessary environmental sensitivity required, pathwork is by definition process led, and not a rigid discipline.

A specification should allow a contractor to be confident that at the tendering stage he is pricing work on the same basis as all his competitors. During the construction phase it should be detailed enough to allow the contractor to undertake the works with a minimum of supervision, but should be flexible enough to take account of unforeseen circumstances.

If a project is poorly specified a contractor may overprice the work ‘just in case’ or underprice on the basis that the minimum work will be carried out and the client will have to pay extra for anything more.

Data storage

The Amber survey method involves collecting between 25 and 30 data sets per path section. A substantial volume of data is therefore generated on an area-based survey of several paths. The most practical and useful method of storage is to use a database that allows the data to be stored and manipulated.

Red surveys tend to generate far less information as they are used to produce specifications and bills of quantity. Site drawings are still stored on paper; however, scanning them and storing them on a PC is extremely useful, and many are stored on the SMiFI database in this way.

On a larger scale, the SMiFI contains information on over 1000 upland access routes throughout Scotland on CD-ROM. The CD includes information about management of individual paths, their condition, use setting and environment. SMiFI is updated regularly, providing the latest data to all subscribers. It provides information that can be viewed in GIS format, which can be used on its own or added to layers within an existing system.

Interpreting survey results

This section relates to the Amber survey method. This is a database survey technique.

The level of analysis available will depend on the type of database used; however, it should be possible to summarise and analyse it in a variety of ways. These include analysis using cross-tabulations and coefficients of regression. Results can be expressed as means, total numbers or percentages as appropriate. This analysis and categorisation enables questions to be posed and hypotheses examined. It is possible to determine how gradient relates to drainage, or to calculate the percentage of paths on evolved lines, or the total length of sections of varying priority.

A number of useful cross-tabulations can be generated from Amber data, such as the relationship between drainage, surface material and path width or the rate of erosion in relation to long gradient. Especially interesting is the relationship of various physical factors to path width and path erosion, because this provides an indication of the type of path management that is likely to be most effective.