WTT Blog - Tagged with monitoring

One year on now the weir has gone

Posted on May 31, 2019

DSC 0219

A year has already flown by since we (me at WTT, Pete Turner at EA & Kevin Sunderland at Aire RT) worked in partnership to remove the weir at Coniston Cold on the Aire, North Yorks. I’m currently champing at the bit awaiting a bespoke permit from the EA to tackle another. The funding is in place. The owner has granted permission for full removal having seen the transformation at Coniston Cold. The next weir will present its own challenges… but more on that in another blog.

I wanted to focus on developments at the site formerly known as Coniston Cold Weir....

Developments on the Dove at Birdsgrove

Posted on October 03, 2018

1 Gothard Weir In 2016 Pre Works

A WTT advisory visit in 2016 on behalf of Birdsgrove Fly Fishing Club (BFFC) to the River Dove, Derbyshire, identified seven weirs along the 5km length of river fished by the club. The impoundment of water by these structures is detrimental to river habitat, fly and fish populations,especially from a fish passage persepctive, and natural sediment transport. The advisory visit report stimulated a debate within the club about what could be done to improve the fishery and it was decided to work towards the removal of the two weirs that had been built by the club in the past.

The results are in: barriers down, fish up

Posted on September 07, 2018

The results are in: barriers down, fish up

I’ve been looking forward to this moment for quite some time now…..well, at least a year. The monitoring of my pet project from pre-intervention (weir notching and removal / partial demolition over six structures) to several years post is quite revealing, and I’ll let the data do the talking.

Now, as a scientist, I know there are a few caveats associated with the figure above. But as there was no specific funding pot for the monitoring of the works for this duration, I am making the best of the situation. So, all surveys were carried out in each of the years for roughly the same amount of time (effort), over similar distances, using similar kit, and roughly the same time of year (although 2018 was a little later because of the incredibly dry spring / summer we have just experienced). Ideally, all of these parameters would have been standardised; ie identical each time.

Connectivity at Coniston Cold

Posted on July 09, 2018

Connectivity at Coniston Cold

And so it comes to pass….Coniston Cold weir, which in various forms has been a man-made obstruction to fish passage on the R Aire in N Yorkshire for the past 180 years at least, is no more. Instead, there is now 20.4km of uninterrupted free passage along the Aire and a major tributary.... and all for less than £8k!

Coniston Cold Weir: 19m wide and 1.2m headloss, with a 4m horizontal block-stone apron

I will not reinvent the wheel and spend time here discussing how weirs cause environmental issues. The evidence is abundant and simple to find in the scientific literature, and my colleague Paul Gaskell has recently summarised much of that, here. Then there are global-local events like World Fish Migration Day to raise awareness and I would wager that almost every conservation body involved with river restoration has a hit-list of target weirs on their local patch.

How do chalk stream fish respond to flow and habitat restoration?

Posted on October 04, 2017

How do chalk stream fish respond to flow and habitat restoration?

At the WTT Annual Get Together earlier this year, I had the pleasure of bumping into a former MSc student of mine, Simon Whitton, who now works at Affinity Water and is collaborating with colleagues at Cranfield University, supervising PhD students of his own; a perfect opportunity for another guest blog or four! Since abstraction and chalk streams have hit the headlines repeatedly and this year especially, we should follow Mickaël's progress with interest (and that of Jess Picken too)....

Chalk streams are highly important ecosystems and are a fundamental component of the landscape in the south and east of England. They are hotspots of ecological diversity and support important fisheries for trout and dace amongst others. However, the water that feeds chalk streams originates from groundwater, which is under increasing pressure from abstraction to supply our expanding urban populations. This conflict puts chalk streams squarely in the sights of environmental regulators and water companies as they try to find the best ways to preserve the ecology and the water supply. Hence, my project is sponsored by Affinity Water, and the Environment Agency, and is a part of Cranfield University’s Industrial Partnership PhD studentship programme.

Tags under trees tell a tale

Posted on August 07, 2017

Tags under trees tell a tale

In science, new questions are always arising from serendipitous discoveries. Angus Lothian tells us of some interesting data on fish predation that has come to light as a part of his PhD project at Durham University, assessing trout behaviour at fish passes.

Every year, Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and sea trout (Salmo trutta) undertake an upstream migration in autumn. People watch these fish ‘heavy-weights’ leap, or at least attempt to, over barriers after having already completed maybe tens of miles on their journey to and from sea. Such a migration allows the fish to use rich marine feeding areas to grow larger than they might achieve by staying in freshwater, thus increasing their fecundity or egg production for when they return to their natal rivers. But there are trade-offs. The migration between freshwater and saltwater is filled with risk, resulting in large annual mortality affecting fish populations. For example, for my MRes, I studied the emigration of salmon smolts from rivers, and their behaviour strongly reflected predator avoidance tactics.

Low flows and salmonid rivers: an update

Posted on July 14, 2017

Low flows and salmonid rivers: an update

Jess Picken was the first to contribute to our new series of guest blogs in which she outlined plans for her PhD. And clearly, she has been busy! She is back with an update already...

To recap on my previous post, numerous studies have reported that low flow reduces the density of salmonids within streams. What is not so well-known is what, or how, other parts of the salmonids’ ecosystem are also affected by low flow. Riverflies and other aquatic macroinvertebrates make up a large proportion of juvenile salmonid diet, which is subsequently reflected in salmonid growth rate, condition and survival. Understanding how the availability of these macroinvertebrates changes with reduced summer flow is important to help conserve fish species of high UK and European importance.

My life at the moment... macroinvertebrates down the microscope!

The riparian invasion: salmonid friend or foe?

Posted on May 23, 2017

The riparian invasion: salmonid friend or foe?

'Tis the season to bash balsam - if you don't know how to, check out the definitive guide from WTT chum, Theo Pike, for guidance! Timely then for a new blog focussing on invasive plants. Alex Seeney from the Centre for River Ecosystem Science (CRESS) at the University of Stirling, is battling with balsam and knotweed from a more academic angle, and below gives an overview of some his research to date. This valuable work is supported by Scottish Natural Heritage.

Some of the most diverse and complex habitat types in aquatic systems are found at the interface between terrestrial and aquatic communities – the riparian zone. These diverse, dynamic systems provide an ecologically important buffer between land and water, and as such they are of particular importance to the health and quality of the waterways they border.

Can watercress farming directly impact fish communities in chalk streams?

Posted on April 27, 2017

Can watercress farming directly impact fish communities in chalk streams?

Asa White gets to call wading around in the Bourne Rivulet work! Our research interests in chalk streams have some parallels. While I am curious as to how a colourless, odourless gas (methane) contributes to the fuelling of their food webs, Asa is trying to understand how an equally invisible chemical is affecting invertebrate and fish life. Here, he outlines his research plans and offers up the experience of electric fishing - read on! 

Watercress is native to the chalk streams of southern England, and has been harvested for millennia. In the early 19th century, the advent of the railway made commercial production viable for the first time. A growing London market supplied by trains (the famous ‘Watercress Line’ being one) led to an explosion in the number of watercress farms throughout the south of England. Historically, watercress was grown in gravel beds irrigated by water diverted from chalk streams, but hygiene concerns now oblige growers to irrigate their beds using fresh water abstracted from boreholes. In both instances, the water used to irrigate the beds is discharged into adjacent chalk streams. 

Impacts of low flows on salmonid river ecosystems

Posted on March 22, 2017

Impacts of low flows on salmonid river ecosystems

In the first of a new series from students actively involved in research relevant to wild trout, Jessica Picken from Queen Mary University of London summarises the aims of her PhD working with the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust and with CEFAS.

Climate change is considered to be the most critical disturbance imposed on natural systems on a global scale. Climate models predict that average temperatures in the UK will increase over the course of the next 50 years with the greatest warming in the south of England during summer months, and that annual average precipitation will reduce. However, the reduction in precipitation is expected to be more pronounced during summer than winter, whereas extreme winter precipitation is expected to become more frequent. In other words, there is likely to be an overall shift towards drier summers but wetter winters.

Easements on Eastburn

Posted on October 06, 2016

Easements on Eastburn

A number of my blog posts have featured Eastburn Beck. It’s my pet project because it is the first that I cut my teeth on after moving to Yorkshire, because I live overlooking its headwaters and hence it is a very easy and accessible site for me to monitor. It is also exciting because it has ably demonstrated the value of partnership working, and how with critical mass, relatively small habitat improvements are snowballing both up and downstream from the original work plans as word spreads; this is quite typical for projects that the WTT is involved with!

Pre & post some weir notching we undertook on Eastburn Beck at Lyndhurst Wood. The channel width is narrower with more natural pool, riffle, and depositional features

Extinction of Experience

Posted on May 23, 2016

Extinction of Experience

April was a quiet month for me as my academic commitments stole the lion’s share. But I can’t believe we are already at the end of May! May is probably my favourite month…. here in North Yorkshire, the ramsons and bluebells are in full swing and the beech buds burst to dapple them in shade and provide such a vibrant, fresh green for a week or so. And then there are mayflies of course but that’s another story.

 

What do we need, to know if it works?

Posted on February 11, 2016

What do we need, to know if it works?

Typical! Not two weeks after completing my round-up for the Science Spot in Salmo trutta, the annual glossy WTT publication that our members receive, an interesting paper on IMWs (Intensively Monitored Watersheds) lands on my desk. While not exactly on topic, it includes interesting snippets that would have embellished my article. However, as I wrote in the Salmo piece, the means by which knowledge is transferred nowadays means: I can (and have already) tweeted about this paper (but not included any precis or personal view of its content); I can (here, now) blog about it and impart some detail; or I can sit on it for 12 months and tell you all about it in the 2017 issue of Salmo!

IMWhats? In the Pacific Northwest, a vast tract of land with a very loosely defined boundary but it’s roughly 67 times the size of Wales if you’re interested in that sort of thing, there are at least 17 IMWs. They are an attempt to test the effectiveness of a broad range of stream restoration actions for increasing the freshwater production of anadromous salmon and steelhead and to better understand fish–habitat relationships. This is no mean feat, and the paper by Bennet and his colleagues reports on the lessons learned so far.

Workshop on developing river monitoring for citizen scientists

Posted on September 15, 2015

On behalf of WTT, I recently attended a workshop coordinated by Dr Murray Thompson (a former MSc student of mine), the aim of which was to brainstorm on how to extend and develop river monitoring of restoration projects, particularly for citizen scientists. The workshop was generously supported by Ross Brawn, a good friend and supporter of WTT. The discussions were wide ranging and there were some interesting viewpoints raised by the various contributors (from the Environment Agency, Wildlife Trusts and Rivers Trusts, academia, consultancies, the River Restoration Centre etc).

Why? Well, in the limited number of cases where monitoring (to determine whether the restoration has achieved what it set out to do) is actually considered, then the cost of that monitoring typically is a part of an already limited restoration budget. Funding before and after sample collection, particularly in the longer-term, is not always available. However, the lack of coordinated standardised restoration monitoring has led to a paucity of knowledge about the effectiveness of restoration projects. Where monitoring has been undertaken, the sampling methodologies used were often originally conceived to detect pollution but may be incompatible for detecting ecological recovery.