School River Challenge on the Emm Brook

Category: Latest news

School River Challenge on the Emm Brook

Posted on by Ian Lamont

While works are being planned to restore the Emm Brook in Riverside Park, Wokingham, the South East Rivers Trust has begun engaging the community through an interschool competition.

Primary schools in the area were all invited to take part in the School River Challenge.   Schools competed to get the most pupils to become certified Junior River Rangers.  The prize? A class set of river dipping equipment.

The competition was run over the June half term.  It was launched in each school with an assembly – delivered virtually over Zoom – in the week beginning 17th May.  Many teachers took the week before half term to undertake some of the Junior River Ranger activities as a class.  Children were then encouraged to complete the remaining activities with family and friends.  In the course of the competition, we received more than 300 hits on our Junior River Ranger webpage!

Nature based solutions to man-made problems

Posted on by Samantha Hughes

There is no doubt that we are going through a massive and positive paradigm shift. It is finally hitting home that human activities thoroughly depend on the health of the natural environment and the sustainability of the many services it provides. The natural environment has rapidly moved from the periphery to the very centre of conversations, with action on fundamental issues from our own well-being to agriculture and the economy.

Humans are an increasingly urban species, although a major consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is how we have come to realise the importance on being in contact with Nature, and how Nature can provide us with many solutions to the problems we create.

One of those problems is road runoff.  Most of us are highly dependent upon cars or other vehicles and the massive road network carved into our catchments, to get us or the goods we buy from one place to another.

 

Hogsmill Community Newsletter

Posted on by Ian Lamont

The Hogsmill Community Newsletter summarises the results of River Monitoring Initiative (RMI) sampling on the Hogsmill, together with other pollution monitoring and river-related activities and events.

The RMI is a national scheme for monitoring the health of rivers. Volunteers undertake regular surveys using a standard net sampling technique to count the number of certain “water quality sensitive” invertebrates.

An overall “score” is then calculated. A sharp fall or a drop below a “trigger” level could indicate pollution. This can then be reported to the Environment Agency (EA) to enable further investigation.

Grand opening of Acacia

Posted on by Samantha Hughes

The Central Park/ Acacia Hall River Restoration Project took a massive step forward at the end of March, writes Sam Hughes.

On Thursday 25th March 2021, after months of delay because of the pandemic, the (rather ugly but essential) cofferdams were removed from the upstream and downstream ends of the project area, and flow was returned to the restored western channel of the Darent that runs through Central Park then past the redeveloped Acacia Hall.

I can’t tell you how excited the SERT team is about this, after more than three years of hard and very muddy work!

SuDS design and delivery

Posted on by Ian Lamont

When Covid-19 affected our plans for the SuDS in Sutton’s Schools project, the South East Rivers Trust shifted its focus from Education and Engagement to Design and Delivery – increasing the expertise we are able to give on future sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) projects.

The primary objective of any SuDS scheme is to alleviate flood risk – capturing and storing rainwater, reducing pressure on the drainage system.

We worked with schools to deliver clear benefits, whether it be for wildlife, as calm spaces or to enhance the work of particular lessons.

The SuDS in Sutton’s Schools project was managed by the London Borough of Sutton council and our role has been to deliver education and engagement to help schools meet flood relief targets.  The primary aim has been to alleviate flood risk in the Hackbridge area – known as Critical Drainage Area 33.

The SuDS in Sutton’s Schools project was delivered in schools in two phases – using the summer holidays to deliver the bulk of the work.  The first phase was completed in 2019 and, because of delays caused by Covid-19, the second phase was completed in 2021.

Thames Catchment Community Eels Project

Posted on by Ian Lamont

We’re eel-y excited to announce that Thames Rivers Trust in partnership with the South East Rivers Trust, Action for the River Kennet, and Thames21, have been successful in gaining funding to aid the long-term survival of the European eel.

Eels have a spectacular and complex life cycle! European eels spend most of their lives living in Europe’s rivers, including here in the UK. When they are ready to spawn they migrate more than 6,000km across the Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea, where their lifecycle begins again.

Once hatched, the larvae make the incredible journey back across the ocean to our rivers, and develop into young eels, also known as elvers, before swimming upstream.

SERT on tour – delivering a fish passage project on the River Ock

Posted on by Ian Lamont

In September 2020, we successfully installed two fish passes on a weir on the River Ock in Abingdon. The River Ock is a small tributary of the Thames and owes its name to the pre-Saxon word “Ock” meaning young salmon. Salmon were a common sight on the Ock and a staple part of local diets in the middle ages. So why are these migratory majesties no longer present on the river?

Aside from other more global issues, barriers to migration such as the weir at Abingdon would present challenges to upstream migration of all fish species, not just salmon. The weir results in fragmented habitat which in turn can create bottlenecks at varying life stages. As a result, the survival and success of fish is compromised. It was therefore in the river’s best interest to implement fish passage on this weir.

The weir is a standard crump gauging weir, used by the Environment Agency’s Hydrometry and Telemetry’s team to monitor flows in order to help predict downstream flooding and manage abstraction licenses. It is 5.7m long and split into two channels. The left hand channel (as you look downstream) feeds the River Ock and the right hand channel feeds the Sandford Brook. The design of the weir, coupled with the fact that it was a gauging station, added several complexities.

Action on sewage in rivers

Posted on by Ian Lamont

Raw sewage is entering UK rivers on a horrifyingly regular basis, damaging our river ecosystems and putting public health at risk. In 2019 alone, untreated sewage poured into England’s rivers for an astounding 1.5 million hours, over the course of 200,000 separate incidents.

What’s really shocking is that, much of the time, this practice is completely legal.

Across the UK is a network of Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). These are essentially Victorian-era relief valves on the sewage treatment infrastructure. If sewage piping, or even a sewage treatment works, is becoming overwhelmed with sewage and rainwater, it is diverted and discharged into a nearby watercourse instead of backing up into homes.

How to solve a problem like soil moisture monitoring – featuring Friston Forest

Posted on by Kathi

We have finally been able to install some of our baseline monitoring equipment, which we are using at one of our pilot sites for the PROWATER project!

PROWATER is a partnership project that the South East Rivers Trust is delivering locally with Kent County Council and South East Water. The project will investigate the opportunities for ecosystem-based adaptation to water scarcity and climate change.

As water is a scarce resource in South East England, we are interested in understanding the impact of different habitats and land management options on the availability of water. A lot of our public water supply in the South East comes from groundwater stored in underground reservoirs, also known as aquifers. These aquifers are normally recharged by winter rainfall. The quantity and quality of water recharged is highly influenced by how the land on top of the groundwater body is managed. PROWATER aims to understand how to quantify the benefits from those different management options, and how to reward those managing the landscape, like farmers and foresters, for making choices that protect those water resources.

Eat, Sleep, Restore, Repeat

Posted on by Ian Lamont

Our volunteers were incredibly busy back in February 2020, carrying out River Restoration on the Beverley Brook and Wandle.

At the start of 2020, a new group of volunteer River Restorers came together to learn about natural river processes and how heavily modified waterbodies (such as the Beverley Brook) have been altered over time. These changes stop the natural processes which would usually shape a healthy river ecosystem, leaving us with a degraded river that has few, good habitats for wildlife.

Early in 2019, we carried out a large-scale restoration project along 1.3 km of the Beverley Brook through Wimbledon Common. Our River Restorer volunteers came on board to help us extend the work upstream – this time using people power alone!

We worked together to plan and design the work, ready to deliver as a team in mid-February.

Acacia Hall – River Darent Restoration

Posted on by Samantha Hughes

Having completed most of the river works on the River Darent in Central Park, Dartford in January 2020, we now have a bit of time to tell you what we got up to!

The River Darent splits immediately upstream of Dartford Central Park.

The western channel meanders through the park and past Acacia Hall weir before disappearing under an old ballroom building and the A226 before continuing through Dartford Town Centre. The eastern channel acts as flood relief channel and, prior to the restoration project, took the majority of low to medium flows.

Soil management for water resources – a can of worms?

Posted on by Kathi

Earthworms are probably not the first iconic species you think of in the context of river health. It’s easy to laugh at the notion that the wriggly pink strings that hide underneath your compost bin are a key part of a functioning hydrological system – and yet they, and the soil they live in, are.

Soil stores, purifies, retains and drains water – regulating its flow to groundwater bodies and rivers alike, and playing a key role in water quality by taking up nutrients or releasing sediment. Like any ecosystem, soil relies on a complex network of interactions between organisms of all sizes, as well as physical and chemical processes, and much more, but earthworms in particular tell us a lot about how our soil is functioning and in turn influence how it behaves.

Drain misconnections and our rivers

Posted on by Ian Lamont

A guest blog written by Jennifer Connelly

According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, there are still an estimated 150,000 to 500,000 UK homes with misconnected drains. Dodgy pipework or old houses with out of date plumbing can cause wastewater to end up in our rivers and seas, creating serious problems for wildlife. So what are drain misconnections, what causes them and how do they affect our environment?

First rain garden complete

Posted on by Ian Lamont

The weather could not have been better for our planting day at Sutton Council’s Denmark Road Offices, writes Charlene Duncan. This planting day was organised to enable staff members to contribute to the new rain garden. Thanks to the hard work of everyone who came out, the rain garden is now complete!

Nearly 30 members of staff volunteered their time to transform the area in front of the building. It was a great chance for staff to meet people from other departments and to socialise with colleagues.  Staff members gave what time they could, from 20 minutes to more than three hours!  Every contribution was greatly appreciated.

This rain garden is part of our SuDS in Sutton’s Schools project.  It demonstrates sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) to the schools involved in the project and the wider community. SuDS are measures that divert water from the drains to reduce flood risk and improve the quality of water flowing into our rivers.

By waiting until the autumn to plant up the rain garden, we have increased the new plants’ chances of survival.  Planting during this summer’s drought would have meant the plants required a lot of watering.  While a bit of watering is still necessary for the newly planted garden, once established, the water from the offices’ downpipes will be all that is needed.

So, a massive thank you to all volunteers who gave up their time.  And, an extra thank you for those of you who could not give your time but offered moral support and encouragement on the day.  The garden is looking lovely and it’s all down to you.

Now all we need is some rain.

Watch our timelapse video of the rain garden being constructed