Water Quality Monitoring
Learning more about our catchment is at the heart of what RLCP is about. Monitoring the conditions of our rivers helps us to understand the challenges we face and how best we can implement solutions. Our monitoring of the catchment has two primary strands – citizen science testing, and continuous water quality monitors.
Citizen Science
From 2023 to 2025, RLCP was a partner in CaSTCo (the Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative) as part of the Anglian Demonstration Catchment. This enabled us to train and set up a network of citizen scientists across the catchment, who regularly take water samples, test for water quality at home, and report their findings.
Equipped with Hanna and Groline meters, each citizen scientist is able to measure water temperature, pH, conductivity, ammonia and phosphate concentrations. Their data is then uploaded to our Lark Data Dashboard (soon to be made public) where results from across the catchment can be viewed and compared. This allows us to see changes in water quality, both across the catchment and over a long period of time.
Continuous Water Quality Monitoring
RLCP is working with Seneye (an engineering company based in Norwich), who design and build water quality sensors now installed across the Lark catchment. The sensors record high-resolution real-time data on a variety of water quality parameters (ammonia, turbidity, dissolved oxygen etc) which is displayed on a dashboard. When a sensor detects a pollution event, its micro-sampler takes a physical sample of the river water for further testing. This technology enables us both to remotely witness pollution events in real-time, and to understand more about their causes.
eDNA Testing
Peridocally, an additional sample is taken and sent to the lab for eDNA testing. This is allowing us to identify the presence and location of some rare species that we are delighted to find in the river (like brook lamprey and water vole). It also shows up species that are invasive and unwelcome, like signal crayfish. It has also allowed us to identify and then report pollution events from both agricultural run-off and sewage.
Monitoring Strategy
Combining both the data from our water quality monitors and the great work done by our citizen scientists is helping to provide us with a much more well-rounded understanding of the water quality across the Lark catchment. Both methods record a different selection of parameters and have their own pros and cons. Together, they can help to validate the water quality issues facing the Lark catchment and give us the evidence base to help produce solutions.