What’s in your waterway? Join our new community water-monitoring project to find out!
Blue Heart and Strandliners are launching a new community water-quality monitoring project pilot in Eastbourne and southern Wealden. Pollution in our rivers and streams is a high-profile, emotive issue, and this project will offer members of the community a way to respond proactively.
Strandliners will be working with community groups to undertake simple surveys in their local area. This will include water quality monitoring as well as wildlife surveys (for example dragonflies, butterflies), bird surveys, river health (for example The Big River Watch). All training in water analysis provided.
The data collected will populate our Blue Heart interactive map and will be compared to data from their automatic water monitoring stations and from other organisations such as the Environment Agency.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with Strandliners on this project. It’s a brilliant way to open up the work of Blue Heart to support participation by local people who really care about their environment. We’re exciting to have more eyes on the ground for monitoring our waterways, and even better it’s our communities who are supporting us in this. It will help develop community-based skills and knowledge so that individuals can advocate for safer, healthier waterways and habitats.”
Anna Hastings, Blue Heart Project Manager
The initial pilot project will run from August to November, but the aim is to continue into next year with more extensive training to enable groups to continue monitoring the same areas on a regular basis, promoting an awareness of seasonal changes and knowing what is ‘normal’ so an alert can be raised if there is an unexpected change.
For more information about the project and how to get involved, please visit https://strandliners.org/ or contact info@strandliners.org