Irish PhD research on river connectivity issues

Scan our news pages, keep abreast of the Conservation Officer Twitter feeds, and trawl back through the WTT Blog, and you will unearth much practical work to restore connectivity of river systems. We have a library page outlining some of the prominent issues that obstacles cause to all fish, not just the migratory superstars, sea trout and salmon.

But in an arena where funding for conservation is limited and managers are looking to proritise projects, then it helps to know, for example, where and how many barriers are on a given system, and how severe are the impacts of each. To help address this in Irish rivers, Siobhán Atkinson, a PhD student based in the School of Biology and Environmental Science in University College Dublin (UCD) is conducting research as part of an Environmental Protection Agency-funded project called Reconnect.

She has outlined her project for us as the latest guest researcher on the WTT Blog, and we look forward to updates from her as the work progresses.