I saw the link to this on Twitter on Friday and thought I’d have a go at sending observations from my local river - which just happens to be the Ouzel, the same river that runs past the OU’s Walton Hall campus:
I used their iOS app together with Merlin to identify the birds I could hear at the time.
Chris.
There are/have been lots of citizen science projects associted with rivers. But one of the most important issues is how to monitor pollution incidents and get something done about them since the various government agencies have cut back so much. The stream going past our allotments often suffers pollution incidents and now plot holders know how to contact the various agencies/water companies quickly to take action but it took a lot of phone calls etc to find out what to do.
Would be better if there were a system so that anyone anywhere could put on the data and authorities are alerted automatically. Also that citizen scientists can use suitable sensors to get reliable data from the water and onto this system.
Sounds like the basis for a research project…
So agree - we have a community group Friends of the Somerset River Frome with a lively Facebook page so every pollution incident is widely shared and lots of eyes, not just anglers, are checking the river, but this is only local, a country wide logging system would be ideal.
