?? We will monitoring the impact of Rota Vicentina

Since its beginning, Rota Vicentina has been concerned with assessing its impact on the region in economic, social and environmental terms.

It all started in 2013 with an environmental impact study. In 2017, monitoring was complemented with surveys, automatic counters and a quantitative and behavioral studies, in order to answer the famous questions:

Who are the hikers of Rota Vicentina? How are they seen by the local community? What is their impact on the territory?

In order to characterize the temporal and spatial behavior of the use of Rota Vicentina, a monitoring strategy was adopted that combines the use of automatic counting equipment for hikers and several days of physical counting, with teams with manual counters, simultaneously on all trails, in a set of days representing the different walking seasons.
In 2017, Rota Vicentina had the privilege to have many volunteers and Associates and it would be good to repeat this feat!

With the logic of trails monitoring continuity, in 2022, we will perform an X-ray of the field again, by counting hikers and making field surveys to them, but for that the help of each one is essential!

Physical counting requires the presence of a large team on the field, about 80 people per day. The ideal would be to establish a fixed set of volunteers that can do it in several sessions this year (there will be 6 in total). The first one will take place on February 19th in the following sections/routes:

• Historical Way, Cercal do Alentejo » Porto Covo


• Historical Way, Odemira » S. Teotónio


• Historical Way, Vila do Bispo » Cabo de S. Vicente


• Fishermen’s Trail, Vila Nova de Milfontes » Almograve


• Fishermen’s Trail, Luz » Lagos


• Circular Route Cercal do Alentejo


• Circular Route The paddy fields of Campilhas


• Circular Route The Dunes of Almograve


• Circular Route S. Teotónio’s Heathlands


• Circular Route Santa Clara to the Lake


• Circular Route From Bordeira to the Sea


• Circular Route Cordoama

A monitoring action consists of having a team of two volunteers, for 6 hours, at a defined point (usually the middle of the section/route). The number of hikers who are passing must be recorded on a sheet, as well as interviewing them. For this, there is a survey with a dozen questions.

On the 17th at 19 p.m., before the start of the counts, an online training session will be held for the volunteers and a field manual will also be provided on the work to be carried out and the care to be taken in this task, which we know is not easy! Even if they cannot attend the action on the 19th of February, there will be new dates for collecting questionnaires and counting hikers. Sign up to receive in advance all the necessary information: