Vegetation management in the vicinity of overhead lines represents a significant maintenance requirement and associated budget spend. While there is an ongoing commitment to this issue, it is recognised that a better understanding of vegetation growth rates would greatly assist in vegetation management strategies and decision making, helping direct the focus of activity.

The project will seek to develop a software model that will analyse the relationships between key environmental variables (including the potential impact of climate change) and vegetation growth rate, for different vegetation types. The model will be used to consider the costs and benefits of undertaking vegetation management to different specifications.

Following tree cutting at selected sites the model will be validated against the first year of growth data, which will be determined by laser measurement. The model will subsequently be optimised based on annual growth rates determined over a further three-year period.

Objectives

The project will investigate the following areas:

• This project is a GB wide study into the differing growth rates experienced in the 26 bio climatic zones that are found across the country

• It will involve cuts made to 2000 sample areas across the identified zones to a common specification, followed by monitoring to confirm growth

• The output is expected to lead to modelling software that can portray different cut cycles

• The common GB project should provide further evidence / justification in future Price Control Reviews.