The BioDT Recreational Potential Model for Scotland
Site contents
This site provides access to technical reports related to the Recreational Potential model for Scotland, which was developed by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology as part of the BioDT project.
The Summary document provides a high-level overview of the Recreational Model and the research context in which it came about.
The Technical Supplement goes into greater detail regarding the data, code and mathematics underpinning the model. This document would be useful for someone aiming to understand the full process, starting from the download of ‘raw’ datasets, and following through all the way to the final output values.
The Developers’ Report provides an account of development work carried out between November 2024 and June 2025, and makes detailed recommendations for further development work. It would be useful for someone intending to continue development of this model.
The Worked Example demonstrates basic usage of the model in
R.
Associated publications
The following is an incomplete list of publications and research outputs associated with this project. It will be updated as additional outputs are made available.
Access to code & data
Code for the Recreational Potential model is available as an R Package hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/BioDT/uc-ces-recreation. These reports relate specifically to the version 1.0 release, which is also available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15705544.
The model requires some input data that is too large to be bundled in with the package, but which can be downloaded from Dropbox after package installation using biodt.recreation::download_data(). This data is also included in the Zenodo listing.
The source for these documents and this website can be found at https://github.com/BioDT/ces-recreation-reports.
Funding
Funding for OpenNESS came from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 308428, OpenNESS Project (Operationalisation of Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services: From Concepts to Real-world Applications.)
Funding for BioDT came from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101057437 (BioDT project, https://doi.org/10.3030/101057437). Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.
Funding for SPEAK came from the Natural Environment Research Council – Growing Shoots Partnership and application co-creation bursary. NE/Y005805/1 _Growing Shoots.
CRediT statement
JMR: software; visualisation; writing. MT: software; visualisation; writing. CA: conceptualisation; data curation; funding acquisition; software. JD: conceptualisation; funding acquisition; project administration. SR: funding acquisition; software.
Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge significant contributions to a previous version of the Recreational Potential model by Will Bolton. JMR would also like to thank Tomáš Martinovič for assisting with understanding the requirements of BioDT.
We are very grateful to all the participants of the SPEAK project which this output is based on including: Alastair Leaver, Alice MacSporran, Brian Cassidy, Chris Pollock, David Giles, Jean Cowie, Joanna Gilliatt, Justyna Olszewska, Laura Taylor, Maddi Bunker, Rebecca MacLennan, S Mayes, Shaila Rao, Steve MacKinnon and Tom Gebbie, Active Stirling. We are equally grateful to an additional 18 participants who preferred to remain anonymous.
Correspondence
{jand,chan}@ceh.ac.ukfor enquiries relating to the BioDT or SPEAK projects, or ongoing and future work.chan@ceh.ac.ukfor enquiries relating to the data sources and QGIS processing.{joemar,madtig}@ceh.ac.ukfor enquiries relating to the code and anything else appearing in the technical supplement and/or developer’s report.simrol@ceh.ac.ukfor enquiries relating to the biodiversity component of the BioDT project.
Reuse
Copyright
Citation
@report{ukceh2025,
author = {Marsh Rossney, Joe and Tigli, Maddalena and Andrews,
Christopher and Dick, Jan and Rolph, Simon},
publisher = {Zenodo},
title = {Reports on the {BioDT} {Recreational} {Potential} {Model} for
{Scotland}},
version = {1.0},
date = {2025-06},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15715070},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.15715070},
langid = {en},
abstract = {These reports describe the BioDT Recreational Potential
Model for Scotland (1.0), at the end of the BioDT project in June
2025.}
}