The Sea Angling Diary project (www.seaangling.org) helps demonstrate how national policy demands for information on participation can be met through new (and old) technologies.
The government has a legal obligation to the European Commission under the Common Fisheries Policy to report the activity, catches and spending of recreational sea anglers in the UK. To help them meet this obligation, Substance has developed a bespoke online diary tool used by a panel of more than 1,400 sea anglers to record activity levels, locations, methods, catches and spending. Data is raised to the national level to provide estimates of the activity of c.800,000 sea anglers utilising the National Watersports Survey.
The diary tool:
– Allows participants to self-report activity and outcomes in a user-friendly way
– Utilises new technologies to do this (online tool and potential app)
The project has run since 2016 with increasing levels of participation and data collection, assisted through pro-active recruitment and incentivised data completion.
This presentation will reflect on:
– How this ‘citizen science’ approach helps meet national and European policy commitments
– Issues of recruitment, retention, data completion and bias
– Transferability to other outdoor recreation activities
– How this sits within wider bodies of research.