Rivelin and Loxley river ranger training day

The Rivelin and Loxley River Rangers are a group of volunteer citizen scientists helping to collect data on river water quality along the Rivelin and Loxley Rivers. We do this to protect our river's ecological health and biodiversity.

We focus on...

1) Monitoring combined sewage overflows (CSOs)

2) Monitoring river health and pollution issues by carrying out monthly kick-sampling using the Anglers Riverfly Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) technique and reporting any fly-tipping to the Environment Agency.

3) Monitoring, testing, and reporting on any chemical pollution by using the Water Quality Monitoring Network (WQM) kit and online app (Epicollect5).

We do this in partnership with the Angling Trust and Don Catchment Rivers Trust.

Our collected data gives us a better understanding of the health of our local rivers and with the help of the Environment Agency may be used to hold polluters to account.

Our aim is to raise £280 to pay for a training day provided by the Don Catchment Rivers Trust, which will give 12 new group members the skills and experience they need to carry out monthly kick-sampling using the Anglers Riverfly Monitoring Initiative technique.

The training day will be held in March 2024 and will involve teaching volunteers how to identify and count freshwater invertebrates found within a designated sample area along the river. They will focus on 8 species of river fly invertebrates that have different tolerances to pollution. Some are only found in clean water while others are more tolerant to pollution. After identifying the species and abundance the group will then be shown how to log their data on the Cartographer App.

Our newly trained volunteers will then be able to monitor more sites along the rivers Rivelin and Loxley. This will speed up the identification of incidents of pollution caused by agricultural runoff, combined sewage overflows, and misconnections.