Today, more than 40 volunteers and local people met at the Clinton Hall in Merton to celebrate a second successful year of the volunteer bases river monitoring project called Riverfly.
Part of a national programme, the project began in the Torridge catchment area in 2014 as part of the Biosphere's Nature Improvement Area Project. Since then, 50 volunteers have sampled at nearly 50 different sites (6% of the national total) and have entered data from 290 samples onto the project database. That is 12% of the national total of 2500.
The volunteers sample the invertebrates living on the stream bed. Some are more tollerant to pollution than others so their presence or absence, and their numbers provide vital clues about what is going on beneath the water's surface. The consistent monthly counts undertaken by the volunteers provide a long term picture of stream health across the catchment.
Click images below to enlarge
Part of a national programme, the project began in the Torridge catchment area in 2014 as part of the Biosphere's Nature Improvement Area Project. Since then, 50 volunteers have sampled at nearly 50 different sites (6% of the national total) and have entered data from 290 samples onto the project database. That is 12% of the national total of 2500.
The volunteers sample the invertebrates living on the stream bed. Some are more tollerant to pollution than others so their presence or absence, and their numbers provide vital clues about what is going on beneath the water's surface. The consistent monthly counts undertaken by the volunteers provide a long term picture of stream health across the catchment.
Click images below to enlarge
| Presentation of summary results from Nov. 10th event | 
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Or view results below...