Citizen Science Water Quality Sampling - Darwen NFM

When and where? Tuesday 11th August, 10.00am - 4.00pm at Darwen Valley Community Centre, 59 Sudellside Street, Darwen, BB3 3DL.

Who can join? No previous experience needed, however due to the uneven and sometimes tricky terrain on the moor, we ask that you do not attend if you have poor mobility. The walk to the monitoring sites from the car park is also a bit steep in some areas. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

What is involved? Our Natural Flood Management interventions have now been installed! Help Ribble Rivers Trust collect water quality data at our NFM sites, which we can use to assess the benefits that natural flood management has on our rivers.

The day:

• Refreshments from 10 am.
• Indoor training session in the morning (starting at 10.15 am) to get everyone up-to-speed with how to carry out the water sampling.
• River surveys: We will be carpooling from the Community Centre to the top of Duckshaw Road. From there, we will walk to the monitoring sites. On site, each group will use a simple probe to collect readings of water pH, temperature, conductivity and total dissolved solids. We will also collect a water sample to bring back to the 'classroom' for testing.
• After sampling, we will come back together at the car park and head back to the Community Centre to perform some water chemistry analyses on the samples. We will collectively test samples for phosphate and ammonia concentrations, and we will prepare some simple E.coli tests.
• RRT staff will demonstrate all testing procedures and will be on hand to help answer any questions.

Other important information:

• Please bring your own packed lunch.
• Accessing the study sites will require a short drive from the Community Centre. Please indicate whether you will have a vehicle on the day that you would be happy to use to travel to the survey sites. If you do not have a vehicle, we will make sure to partner you up with someone who does.
• Please bring clean wellies and be prepared for all weathers.
• Please download (if possible) the app 'what3words' before the event. We will use it to provide you the locations of our monitoring sites.

If you have any questions, please email eleanor@ribbletrust.com.