Our rivers and freshwater habitats are at crisis point. The Great UK WaterBlitz is a biannual campaign calling on everyone to test the quality of their local freshwater including rivers, streams and lakes. This builds a national picture of water quality - with this data we can fight for real change.
Categories
Beneficiaries
Situation
Water sustains all life on our planet. Despite this, the UK’s freshwater ecosystems are in a terrible state. Quite how dire the situation has become has been unclear with incomplete or missing data. In June we ran our first Great UK WaterBlitz and over 2,600 people went out and measured the water quality of their local rivers. With this data we were able to capture a snapshot of the health of our rivers - 75% of data points across the UK showed poor ecological health!
Solution
Earthwatch believes in the power of data for change. Our first WaterBlitz report has exposed serious issues in the health of our freshwater systems. This is not the end of the story, but the beginning of a concerted effort to restore these vital, fragile ecosystems. Our citizen scientists have created a robust dataset that evidences the poor ecological health of our rivers. We plan to keep pressuring those responsible for this situation by running two Great UK WaterBlitzes a year.
