Monitoring the health of your rivers

Have you spotted one of our water quality monitors on a river near you?  Maybe you have and you’re wondering what is it?

You can’t always tell how healthy a river is by looking at it from the bank. You need to get in and measure and test to see what is going on.

This specialised environmental monitoring equipment, known as a sonde, is measuring a number of parameters so we can better understand the river water quality in our region.

As part of our five Get River Positive pledges, we're committed to creating more opportunities for everyone to enjoy our regions' rivers, which is why we've installed dozens of these in rivers across our region.

Together with our existing monitoring at our treatment plants and outlets, they will give us an accurate and detailed picture of wider river health and what’s needed to protect and improve them.

So what sort of things are we measuring?

By tracking these parameters we can start to see where we might need to focus our efforts to improve water quality and help others to do the same too.

Data from these will be supporting the development of our online forecasting tool, which we’re developing as part of the Bathing Rivers Programme on the rivers Leam and Teme.

It’s currently still in development but once up and running, this tool will help river users see the health of their river in near real-time and make informed decisions on when and where to be in, on or around the water. 

So if you see a sonde when you’re next out and about by the river, please don’t disturb it as it’s essential to helping us preserve a healthy environment.