Our River Health Project is expanding!

Our River Health Project is one of the Trust’s longest-running endeavours, which aims to monitor the health of local rivers by recruiting and training citizen scientists to collect data on the invertebrate populations living in-stream – and we now have 53 active volunteers! 

Since 2010, the River Health Project has given the opportunity for people of all ages and backgrounds to get involved in conservation work and make a meaningful contribution to the health of their local waterways. By monitoring the presence of 8 invertebrate species, such as stoneflies, mayflies, and blue-winged olives, the Riverfly volunteers can detect changes in river health. These invertebrates are key indicators of water quality, as they are highly sensitive to pollution and environmental degradation. The data collected by our volunteers is used to inform our work as a Trust, and other environmental organisations like the Environment Agency, helping to identify areas where action is needed to protect the river and its inhabitants. This data is publicly available on our data dashboard which you can find here.

Excitingly, we have just trained and certified 17 new Riverfly monitors, to add to our existing network of 36 active monitors across the catchment! Our new monitors will help increase the coverage of our data, and ensure we are able to strategically monitor Combined Sewer Overflows, which can often spill in periods of heavy rainfall. We are already seeing the impact of our new volunteers, as April was our best month on record for the River Health Project with 30 sites sampled across the catchment. 

We would like to thank River Holme Connections for coordinating their Riverfly efforts with us along the River Holme and helping us run our second training event in Honley. 

If you would like to contribute to the protection of your local waterways and learn more about the world of freshwater invertebrates, get in touch with us: monitoring@calderandcolneriverstrust.org.