The 2024 report marks the tenth year of the National Plant Monitoring Scheme, which since its first full season in 2015 has grown to cover over 5,000 plots surveyed by more than 1,000 volunteers, yielding upwards of 250,000 botanical records that feed into the UK Biodiversity Indicators. In 2024 alone, volunteer surveyors submitted data from 270 one-kilometre squares and 1,182 plots, recording 18,849 observations across 916 species or species groups. As a milestone, the 2024 Annual Report contains a number of personal viewpoints from several of our longest serving surveyors and a timeline of the major NPMS events over the past ten years!
A major technical advance this year was the re-launch of the joint NPMS–Plant Portal mobile app—funded by Defra’s Natural Capital programme—to streamline in-field data entry for both NPMS volunteers and wider plant recorders. NPMS data continue to underpin national and continental research, contributing to ReSurveyEurope and informing emerging EU pollinator monitoring initiatives. Looking ahead, NPMS will celebrate its 10th anniversary with regional events on 18th October at UCL East, London, and 25th October at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, Northern Ireland. We hope to see you there!
