As part of the HLS monitoring programme we also champion and embrace the power of citizen science. Citizen science is the involvement of the public in scientific research.
- The Extended Riverfly programme captures data about pollution-sensitive freshwater invertebrates to monitor water quality. Monthly surveys are usually carried out from April to October with the help of citizen science monitoring volunteers. It is part of the Anglers’ Riverfly Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) citizen science project and all data are uploaded to the national ARMI database: riverflies.org.
- Riverfly surveys of New Forest streams started in 2015. In 2019 we switched to the Extended Riverfly method which aims to detect impacts of fluctuations in water quality, water flow and siltation. Our initial results have been used to test a pilot Extended Riverfly database. More work is needed to review our results to date across all sites surveyed.