Chess Smarter Water Catchment Initiative

The Smarter Water Catchment initiative aims to assess the current condition of the River Chess chalk stream and the surrounding catchment, both through water quality and ecological surveying with the local community working as citizen scientists.

Our water quality surveys include water sampling for chemicals, flow monitoring, sediment source investigations and nutrient analyses, whilst our ecological surveys include river habitat quality surveys, invertebrate sampling and we’re also now collaborating with the Chalk, Chairs and Cherries project to introduce bird, butterfly and plant surveying to the wider catchment in 2023.

We are open to suggestions of how our citizen scientists can help with this project dependent on their existing skills and interests, which could also include data interpretation, mapping or field equipment maintenance.

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