The Big River Watch

No, you do not need to be an existing volunteer with a local Rivers Trust or NGO. This app and experience are open to everyone - you just have to be able to access a river in the UK or Ireland during one of our Big River Watch weeks.

Yes, while we're interested in getting as many of you involved over our bi-annual Big River Watch weeks to get a clear snapshot of river health at to points repeated in the year, the app and survey will also remain open to collect data year-round. So, if you run a volunteer group or you're interested in continuing to add information about your local river to the dataset, you can use the app at any time.

No. You do not need existing experience or knowledge on river health or river environments. In fact, we'd love for people who don’t know much about rivers yet to participate too.

Absolutely. You do not need to be a tech whizz, but you will need a smartphone that you can install apps on.

Yes. You will need to be able to visit a river in person. It doesn't matter where you live, or whether your local river runs through a city, town or the countryside, as long as you complete the survey whilst looking at it.

A river is generally too wide for anyone to jump across (greater than 1.5m wide).

We know some of you may not own a smart phone and so we have created this offline Word version for you to use. Just simply fill it in and send it back to us [email protected].

Please note that you must read and agree to the Health and Safety Guidance before taking part, which can be found here.

Absolutely! We've partnered with our friends at Earthwatch to run our two citizen science initiatives at the same time of year, so that the data can be paired up and we can glean even more vital insights into the health of our rivers. If you'd like to add more depth to your survey and take a reading of the nitrate and phosphate levels in your river, please sign up to be part of the Great UK WaterBlitz too. You'll be posted your testing kit and information on how to use it. Then simply follow the guidance to test your river, once you've completed your Big River Watch survey!

Yes, please! You can find social media posts, posters, graphics, images and more that you're welcome to use in our free, online Comms Pack here.

Volunteer with your local Rivers Trust

If you enjoyed being part of the Big River Watch, you can sign up to hear from your local Rivers Trust at the start of the survey in the app, or you can find your local trust on this map and sign up to their mailing lists or follow them on social media. They may have a range of different citizen science opportunities available to you, from things like water quality testing to freshwater invertebrate monitoring.

When rivers thrive, we thrive, but when rivers suffer, so do we. 0% of rivers in England and Northern Ireland are in ‘good’ overall condition. Rivers are suffering from sewage, plastic, chemical and nutrient pollution. To change this, more data is needed. We need to know where our rivers are having the problems, and which problems are the most prevalent. By sparing just 15 minutes, everyone can be part of the solution. Data gathered can support policy change; helping turn the tide on plastics or stem the flow of untreated sewage that reaches our waterways. It also helps identify the best places for river clean-ups, and spots to install things like leaky dams which slow the flow, boost biodiversity and reduce flood risk!