Big River Watch returns for May Bank Holiday

The Big River Watch is back this weekend! Starting today, the public are invited to join the only UK and Ireland-wide citizen science survey of river health which attracted more than 5,000 participants in September 2023.

Joining in is easy with our free, easy-to-use app. The results will be made available on an interactive dashboard and will help drive action to improve rivers both on-the-ground and via campaigns and advocacy.

How you can help in the Big River Watch

Emma Brisdion, Marketing Campaigns Lead at The Rivers Trust, said: “Healthy rivers are essential for our wellbeing and for our wildlife. But rivers in the UK and Ireland have been allowed to get into a desperate state, and there are many people who care immensely about them and want to help. The Big River Watch invites communities to get involved. The simple survey is all about using that connection to rivers to record the good, the bad, and the ugly so we can understand our blue spaces better and make informed decisions about how to revive them.”

Tessa Wardley, Director of Communication & Advocacy at The Rivers Trust, said: “With the state of our rivers hitting the headlines time and again this year, the Big River Watch is the perfect way for people to get involved and take action for their local river. Having a large set of data from one weekend will help our experts to understand what’s going on in our rivers, and what needs to be done to make them cleaner, healthier, and part of a thriving wider environment.

“In September 2023, 60% of Big River Watch participants were new to citizen science, which shows just how important this tool is to help everyone get involved and showing they care about rivers. As well as learning where pollution and wildlife are spotted, we also want to know how spending time near rivers affects people’s wellbeing, so I’d encourage anyone and everyone to spend some time by their river and make their voice heard.”

The Big River Watch is open to all, with no experience or training in citizen science required. All people need to do is download the free Big River Watch app, spend 15 minutes by their local river and answer questions as prompted. We want to build a complete picture of river health, and topics covered include the plants and wildlife people can see, as well as visible signs of pollution or observations on flow levels.

The Rivers Trust is the umbrella body for the Rivers Trust network, providing support with fundraising, advocacy and knowledge-sharing. Through our network of over 60 local Trusts in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and with over 350 dedicated specialists including over 60 farm advisers giving confidential expert advice, we work in partnership at a catchment scale to make our shared vision of wild, healthy, natural rivers, valued by all a reality.

• Shareable assets including high-res images can be found in this communications pack.
• Results and insights from the first iteration of the Big River Watch are published here.

Data from the first iteration of the Big River Watch shows revealed that 73% of people thought their river looked healthy, whilst The Rivers Trust’s recent State of Our Rivers Report 2024 showed that no stretch of river in England or Northern Ireland is in good overall health, with other nations of the UK and Ireland not performing much better. This apparent disparity points to the complexity of assessing river health, as well as the need for more comprehensive monitoring to be done and made accessible to the public to aid their understanding.

Background information

The Big River Watch has been developed by The Rivers Trust and other partner organisations within CaSTCo (a project creating a national framework for improving river health data, with citizen scientists at the heart). Big River Watch is an important tool to support CaSTCo in introducing new and diverse audiences to river science and to encourage accessible engagement and diverse recruitment of volunteers.

Support for the Big River Watch Spring 2024 has been generously provided by Belu.

The Rivers Trust is the umbrella body for the Rivers Trust network, providing support with fundraising, advocacy and knowledge-sharing. Through our network of over 60 local Trusts in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and with over 350 dedicated specialists including over 60 farm advisers giving confidential expert advice, we work in partnership at a catchment scale to make our shared vision of wild, healthy, natural rivers, valued by all a reality.

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