Birmingham River Champions
Birmingham River Champions
Birmingham River Champions
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Area: West Midlands (WMD) Catchment: Upper Tame Date: Aug 2023-ongoing |
What is the purpose?
Volunteers carrying out invertebrate sampling. Photo from Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust Aim: to continue to develop an army of river champions that monitor various aspects of river health across the West Midlands region that could help inform management actions.
Birmingham River Champions is a citizen science initiative in the Upper Tame catchment, Birmingham. Led by the University of Birmingham (UoB), it originated from a collaborative project funded by the Environment Agency (EA).
The Upper Tame catchment is one of the most urbanised catchments in the UK. This project has developed a targeted approach to citizen science data collection, complementing the statutory monitoring across the catchment to improve catchment knowledge.
The citizen scientists have particularly engaged with the Urban Riverfly initiative - a survey designed by the Freshwater Biological Association to monitor macroinvertebrate populations which are the 'canaries' of river ecosystems, at the heart of the food chain, and indicators of river health.
Who is involved and what is their role?
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Citizen scientists receiving Riverfly training
The EA are a principle partner alongside the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust (BBCWT) and Severn Trent Water’s river ranger team.
UoB- supporting monitoring, leading training sessions and project communication.
EA and BBCWT- supporting volunteer recruitment and project dissemination.
Severn Trent- supporting ZSL’s Urban Outfall Safari training sessions and monitoring.
Outcomes / learnings Volunteers are trained in well established, continuous citizen science initiatives: Urban Riverfly; and Urban Outfall Safari, alongside water quality and invasive species monitoring to ensure ongoing volunteer opportunity and support. Volunteers are encouraged to sample monthly, Annual data will be used by the EA to set a minimum threshold for number of riverflies at each site and deviations to act as a early warning sign of pollution. Volunteers worked with Severn Trent Water to identify problem outfalls that may be misconnections. | Successes
Well attended events with 15 groups and 50 volunteers signed up to the project. UoB shared invertebrate knowledge and identification skills to the citizen scientists. Collaborative working across EA, water company, academia, wildlife trust and communities brought together varied skill sets to fully utilise citizen science. Combining Urban Riverfly, water quality monitoring and outfall safari data will enable a comprehensive picture of localised river health. |
Challenges
Limited budget for equipment and unclear guidance resulted in a delay in purchasing reliable water quality kit. Challenge to engage and manage a large number of volunteer groups. Limited time within a one year project to collect sufficient data.
| Solutions Working with BBCWT to maximise funding opportunities through other EA jointly funded projects to purchase citizen science kit. UoB seeking further funding to continue volunteer training and data collection. Web-based platform for uploading and visualising data is being developed to increase access and transparency |
Project links
Find out more about the Environment Agency’s Supporting Citizen Science project
Current information on Water Framework Directive water quality classification
Find out more about Birmingham River Champions
