Utility Week

29 ISSUE 02 FEB/2019 engagement by giving people a better understanding of local impacts on watercourses and the means to help improve them. Steven Loiselle, senior research manager at Earthwatch, a non-government organisation whose citizen science kits have been used globally, including in 'WaterBlitz' events involving water utilities, says: "Citizen science is exploding in the western world; the Water Framework Directive and UN sustainability goals tell us that people need to be part of the solution, not just passive observers who simply pay their utility bill without understanding what it is being spent on or why water pollution is such a problem. We try to encourage people to be stewards of their environment, to record it and carry out supporting actions that move us towards mitigation or conservation." // We try to encourage people to be stewards of their environment, to record it and carry out supporting actions that move us towards mitigation or conservation // Steven Loiselle, senior research manager, Earthwatch DATA BOMBING AND RIVER HEALTH e overabundance of certain nutrients in water courses, such as nitrates from sewage or fertilizers used in agriculture, can cause various adverse health and ecological effects. e scientific method and toolkit FreshWater Watch, developed by Earthwatch, enables volunteers to quickly test phosphate and nitrate levels and observe things such as vegetation cover, sediment levels, or algal blooms, which provide evidence of eutrophication. e data is uploaded to the FreshWater Watch website to give a snapshot of river health, which can be used by water companies, the Environment Agency and others, to direct future mitigation and conservation efforts. is methodology has formed the basis for numerous WaterBlitz events, supported by River Trusts and water companies. WaterBlitz events on the River ames typically run for 24-48 hours and attract 150-250 participants. Data uploaded to the FreshWater Watch online database is pinpointed on a map and volunteers get feedback based on what they observed, such as if the water body has unusually high phosphate concentrations and low sediment, etc. e information is also accessible via the FreshWater Links website, developed by Earthwatch with funding from ames Water, which collates data from a range of citizen science projects in the catchment run by organisations such as the FreshWater Habitats Trust and the London Wildlife Trust. Two-week WaterBlitz events run by Bristol Avon Rivers Trust in 2016, 2017 and 2018 also proved popular and had benefits for both Wessex Water and the Environment Agency. Zoe Hancock, catchment coordinator for the Bristol Avon Catchment Partnership, who set up the initial campaign, says: " e Environment Agency is cutting down the number of rivers and streams it monitors across the catchment as a result of government spending cuts, which means you get local community members visiting water courses that may not have been seen for ages by the agency or the water company – it can be a very useful tool." R e a c h i n g o u t Citizen science is typically a collaborative endeavour and, in the realms of hydrology and water quality monitoring, it involves partnerships between River Trusts, the Environment Agency, agencies such as water utilities, scientific institutions and organisations such as Earthwatch that supply monitoring, training and online data analysis. e approach can be deployed to tackle a range of issues. Domestic misconnections, whereby properties or appliances are plumbed direct into the surface water system instead of sewers, are a major problem in urban catchments that can seriously pollute water courses. Water utilities such as Severn Trent and ames Water have supported various 'outfall safaris' – citizen science campaigns that see small teams of volunteers walk the banks, or in the water itself, of rivers and tributaries looking for polluted discharge Freshwater Links © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015. All rights reserved., Esri, HERE, Garmin, © OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS SampleDistribution < 5 < 10 < 25 < 50 < 100 > 100 Operational Catchments - EA Waterbody Catchments - EA January 23, 2019 0 5 10 2.5 mi 0 8 16 4 km 1:299,244 Earthwatch Above: FreshWater Links collates data from a range of citizen science projects. Left: outfall safaris in action (Picture: ZSL)

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