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BRACE

SmartRivers Training Course

Posted on 6th May 2022

Date and time

May 25th & 26th 2022, 10am – 4pm

Location

Llanfyllin’s Public Institute

Details

There are 12 places available and all equipment will be provided

Contact

Please contact Dewi Morris: dewi.morris@severnriverstrust.com / 07540 113189

What is SMART Rivers?

Nature’s nursery the River Cain is under stress

Salmon & trout are extremely vulnerable in their early freshwater life stages. The water in which they live must be pollution-free and plentiful in order for them to successfully mature and complete their life cycle.

Currently, the ideal conditions to maximise ‘nature’s hatchery’ for salmon and trout are not being met in our rivers. These young fish are being subjected to subtle, and often invisible pollutants in the very water in which they live. Each of these pollutants has an environmental cost, leading to more stress in our fish and poorer quality salmon and trout.

Invertebrates are here to help

Invertebrates live in the same habitat as fish, so are experiencing the same water quality pressures as young salmon and trout. Through SmartRivers we are using invertebrates as a diagnostic test to understand more about the subtle pollutants ‘stressing out’ our fish.  They are easier and cheaper to sample than fish, and also show more revealing responses over time than the spot water samples used by regulators.

Analysing invertebrates this way has been thoroughly tried and tested through the Salmon and Trout Conservation Society ( S&TC) Riverfly project – so we know it works!

SmartRivers is the diagnosis our fish are depending on

No other volunteer riverfly monitoring scheme goes completely to species-level.

SmartRivers is not a programme to just collect data for its own sake. By processing your species data through our unique calculator, SmartRivers analysis can pinpoint what the problems are and where they are occurring, allowing us to control what is controllable and drive real improvements to the quality of water flowing through our rivers.

As a volunteer monitor you will be trained to sample at your sites using the Environment Agency’s 3 minute kick-sweep protocol and how to preserve the sample in alcohol.

Our professional team will take their own spring and autumn samples to provide a baseline and understand which invertebrate species are in your river.

Once all training and benchmarking is complete, you will sample independently at the same sites twice a year, in spring and in autumn.

Analysis

In SmartRivers there are two available pathways, Sample & Identify and Sample & Send.

Under the Sample & Identify pathway: Identify the species in your sample following the training we provide and using our videos as a reference. Be sure to use our invertebrate identification app and the microscope we provide to your hub.

Under the Sample & Send pathway: If you do not want to identify the samples yourself, you can post them to our verified laboratory (for a modest cost).

Report

The species found in each sample are uploaded to our open-access online database. The database uses this information to generate a water quality score card.

The score card contains results for the impact of: organic pollution, nutrient enrichment, sediment, chemicals and flow stress.

These results can be viewed in the database on our interactive map. They are displayed using a traffic light colour scale to denote impact.

Act

When we have multiple years of data, our policy team work with hubs to take action, driving improvements to water quality at a local and national level.

Restoration guidance & evaluation

Restoration schemes are being carried out in you River Cain, SmartRivers monitoring will provide long-term evidence of how the work has impacted water quality. There is a large knowledge gap regarding post-monitoring of restoration projects. With SmartRivers we can define biologically what works best for different river types and refine restoration best practice accordingly.

Evidence to drive and focus local management

SmartRivers data is evidence that can drive meaningful and productive discussions with Natural Resources Wales and the Environmental Agency and other groups active on the river. As the current economic climate means environmental monitoring is largely under-resourced, SmartRivers hubs are needed more than ever to provide the detailed, longer term datasets most rivers are missing.

Shaping national policy

Behind the scenes, S&TC are using SmartRivers data to supplement our policy work, using local SmartRivers case studies as evidence to challenge and improve water policy nationally. Without your data, we would not be able to find these examples and build such strong cases.

Volunteer to be a SMART Rivers monitor on the River Cain Hub

Please contact Dewi Morris: dewi.morris@severnriverstrust.com / 07540 113189

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