Whitendale

This site is located in the Forest of Bowland and is the largest with each sub-catchment covering about 25 ha of blanket bog, it is W/SW facing and located at about 400 m a.s.l. The site is very wet and mostly covered by heather-dominated blanket bog with considerable Sphagnum presence in places. Peat is mostly intact and of a depth of mostly about 1.5 m. There is some erosion at the upper catchment boundary showing 'natural' gullies. The catchments do not show any evidence of past drainage ditches.

The site has been under long-term burn rotation and both sub-catchments have partly been mown (in 2009) to address rank heather areas.

The catchment is part of a United Utilities (UU) water catchment and an RSPB monitoring area.

Forest of Bowland treatment catchment

Treatment sub-catchment during site instrumentation

Below:

Shown are the Control (burnt) and Treatment (mown) catchments with the management areas (burn and mown polygons) - management was done in 2013 - 2015 - 2018 - 2021.