Footpath Erosion in the Yorkshire Dales National Park

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Footpath Erosion in the Yorkshire Dales National Park

I decided to look at what is the effect on footpath erosion because of

being in a national park. Footpath erosion has become a major problem

in the Yorkshire dales, the Yorkshire Dales Park Authority started a

project called Three Peaks project which is a counter erosion scheme.

The main problem is places at honey spots, which are most frequently

used because of the amount of people walking on them this is shown

photograph #24. It is shown here that walkers have to walk round the

path further adding to the erosion.

If Upper Nidderdale were to put in the national park they would suffer

these pressures and would have to make additional footpaths that are

hard wearing such as the ones in Malham but this would cause a blot on

the landscape.

One major factor is walker’s boots because they kick away and break

down the surface but this is by means no means the only factor. It is

not only the walkers that cause the erosion the bike and the heavy

footfall of fell runners who can also break the ground up.

It is not only human impact that makes the footpaths wear down, the

livestock has been a primary source of some of the most serious

surface on the surface because there feet break down the surface also

they eat all the roughage on the surface without this the soil breaks

down because there are no roots in the soil to keep the soil together.

The walkers come along and carry it of on there boots and is deposited

somewhere else.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park has set up schemes to prevent the

footpath erosion such as ‘the three peaks project.’ They have

introduced duckboards across the mud, this would stop the paths

eroding further but they look out of place and unnatural. They have

also tried to reduce erosion by replacing the peat with hard core,

this doesn’t look very natural and can be worn down again quickly but

this method is cheap but needs a lot of maintenance.

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