Save Windermere SmartRiver Sampling Hub Launches
The Save Windermere campaign, WildFish and Cumbria Wildlife Trust have partnered to launch a Windermere SmartRivers ‘superhub’ on Lake Windermere.
SmartRivers is a scientifically robust, nationwide citizen science scheme hosted by WildFish that is helping to fill the monitoring gap left by reduced regulatory monitoring.
The scaled-up hub will sample 15 river sites located on waterbodies which flow into the lake. These sites will help pinpoint the source and scale of pollution in the catchment and monitor changes in aquatic invertebrate populations.
The Windermere ‘superhub’ will deliver an accurate picture of water quality issues downstream from United Utilities’ treatment works. This will help fill the data gap and demonstrate how the treatment works impact aquatic invertebrates – as an indicator of water quality – over time. The ‘superhub’ will target United Utilities’ infrastructure as well as private septic tanks and agricultural inputs to determine the source of pollution.
Using this scientific evidence, we can lobby together to reduce pollution in the catchment. Specific hotspots of pollution are being targeted as part of this work.
Volunteers will receive training as part of the scheme. The first phase of the project will be delivered in two-parts, the first in May and the second in Autumn 2023. In May, volunteers will be trained in invertebrate sampling by professional entomologist Dr Nick Everall. In Autumn, volunteers will then learn identification skills tailored to the aquatic invertebrate species in the catchment.
Once trained, volunteers will continue sampling, twice a year, under the supervision of Matt Staniek.
Matt Staniek, Founder of the Save Windermere campaign said:
“We know that United Utilities is having an impact on the freshwater ecology of Windermere and its surrounding rivers and this work is about quantifying it. We want people to feel like their actions can enact real change. We don't want to collect data for datas sake, we want to hold those that are failing to to account. This work will do that”
