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Wales Online
5 days ago
- Health
- Wales Online
Hundreds of ordinary people sampled rivers in Wales and this is what they found
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Rivers in southern Gwynedd are amongst the cleanest in the UK, a citizen science initiative has revealed. Elsewhere in Wales, water quality is poorer – but nowhere near as bad as in England. This year's Great UK WaterBlitz showed that 37% of water samples in Wales contained unacceptable levels of nutrient pollution, compared to 74% in England. No nutrient pollution – nitrates and phosphates – were found in any of Meirionydd's rivers. The Llŷn and Eryri river basin fared well too, with just 12% of sampling points showing significant levels of nutrient pollution. For the Tawe to Cadoxton catchments in southwest Wales, the figure was around 27%. However, water quality was poorer elsewhere. In the Dee catchment, nutrient pollution was measured at 40%, while on Anglesey 43% of the island's rivers were found to be degraded. A little better, but still failing, was the Teifi and North Ceredigion river basins (48%). Worst offender were the Cleddau and Pembrokeshire Coastal Rivers where nitrates and phosphates were found in almost seven in 10 waterways. Across the UK, the worst places for water quality were the Thames and Anglian river districts. Here, fewer than 14% of measurements showed clean water based on 1,335 samples. While Wales compared favourably with England, the country's 37% failure rate was worse than in Scotland and Northern Ireland (both 30%). The North Wales Live Whatsapp community for top stories and breaking news is live now - here's how to sign up (Image: Earthwatch Europe) Dr Sasha Woods, director of science and policy at Earthwatch Europe, said the UK-wide picture is one of rivers 'suffocating under relentless pollution - sewage, tyre particles, fertilisers'. She added: 'While the situation in Wales is better than in England, over half of the sites tested in Wales still show unacceptable levels of pollution. This demonstrates a clear need for action to address the issues impacting Welsh rivers and protect these vital resources.' Nitrates and phosphates occur naturally in the environment and are essential for plant growth. But high concentrations cause excessive growth which decreases oxygen concentrations, negatively impacting aquatic plants and animals. According to Environment Agency figures, farming accounts for 50-60% of nitrate pollution while sewage effluent contributes 73% of phosphates. The Great UK WaterBlitz, organised by Earthwatch Europe, saw 7,978 citizen scientists test 4,017 freshwater sites in the UK late April. For the study, E coli bacteria levels were also measured in 301 sites. Of these, 24% indicated the water was too poor to swim in. Earthwatch Europe found a link between E coli and phosphate (sewage) levels, but not between E coli and nitrate levels. Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox Separate surveys are carried out for bathing waters off the UK coast – in Wales these are overseen by Natural Resources Wales. The 44 North Wales beaches that are best and worst for swimming can be found here. Public notices in your area
North Wales Live
5 days ago
- Health
- North Wales Live
Hundreds of ordinary people sampled rivers in Wales and this is what they found
Rivers in southern Gwynedd are amongst the cleanest in the UK, a citizen science initiative has revealed. Elsewhere in Wales, water quality is poorer – but nowhere near as bad as in England. This year's Great UK WaterBlitz showed that 37% of water samples in Wales contained unacceptable levels of nutrient pollution, compared to 74% in England. No nutrient pollution – nitrates and phosphates – were found in any of Meirionydd's rivers. The Llŷn and Eryri river basin fared well too, with just 12% of sampling points showing significant levels of nutrient pollution. For the Tawe to Cadoxton catchments in southwest Wales, the figure was around 27%. However, water quality was poorer elsewhere. In the Dee catchment, nutrient pollution was measured at 40%, while on Anglesey 43% of the island's rivers were found to be degraded. A little better, but still failing, was the Teifi and North Ceredigion river basins (48%). Worst offender were the Cleddau and Pembrokeshire Coastal Rivers where nitrates and phosphates were found in almost seven in 10 waterways. Across the UK, the worst places for water quality were the Thames and Anglian river districts. Here, fewer than 14% of measurements showed clean water based on 1,335 samples. While Wales compared favourably with England, the country's 37% failure rate was worse than in Scotland and Northern Ireland (both 30%). Dr Sasha Woods, director of science and policy at Earthwatch Europe, said the UK-wide picture is one of rivers 'suffocating under relentless pollution - sewage, tyre particles, fertilisers'. She added: 'While the situation in Wales is better than in England, over half of the sites tested in Wales still show unacceptable levels of pollution. This demonstrates a clear need for action to address the issues impacting Welsh rivers and protect these vital resources.' Nitrates and phosphates occur naturally in the environment and are essential for plant growth. But high concentrations cause excessive growth which decreases oxygen concentrations, negatively impacting aquatic plants and animals. According to Environment Agency figures, farming accounts for 50-60% of nitrate pollution while sewage effluent contributes 73% of phosphates. The Great UK WaterBlitz, organised by Earthwatch Europe, saw 7,978 citizen scientists test 4,017 freshwater sites in the UK late April. For the study, E coli bacteria levels were also measured in 301 sites. Of these, 24% indicated the water was too poor to swim in. Earthwatch Europe found a link between E coli and phosphate (sewage) levels, but not between E coli and nitrate levels. Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox Separate surveys are carried out for bathing waters off the UK coast – in Wales these are overseen by Natural Resources Wales. The 44 North Wales beaches that are best and worst for swimming can be found here.
The Star
13-05-2025
- Health
- The Star
Citizen scientists to the rescue
THE plight of Britain's polluted rivers is no secret, but an army of citizen scientists set out recently to measure the scale of the problem, hoping to plug knowledge gaps exacerbated by cutbacks at a key environmental regulator. Thousands of volunteers in 90 locations across the country took part in the Great UK WaterBlitz, organised by the environmental charity Earthwatch Europe, testing local rivers and lakes for nitrates, phosphates and other pollutants. The charity will analyse the results and pass them onto the Environment Agency (EA), the government body responsible for waste management, conservation and managing water pollution, in a bid to improve the health of the country's water. The state of Britain's waterways has become a public scandal with privatised water companies widely condemned for pumping raw sewage into rivers and seas. The National Audit Office, an independent parliamentary body, said in a new report that water infrastructure needed an estimated £47bil (RM268.4bil) of investment over the next five years to fix infrastructure and clean up rivers and seas. 'The EA is doing what it can to monitor and manage our waterways. They have increased the number of boots on the ground ... but realistically they just don't have the resources – time, tests or people,' said Earthwatch Europe's science and policy director Sasha Woods. 'This is where citizen science is so incredibly powerful. It is the catalyst for meaningful environmental change – ordinary people coming together in their thousands to create something extraordinary,' Woods said. Earthwatch Europe said it would also use the results of the mass testing to hold water companies to account for not keeping waterways clean. The last Earthwatch Europe testing blitz in September revealed significant levels of drugs, including antidepressants, as well as agricultural contaminants and even traces of stimulants like nicotine, which the EA started monitoring based on the findings, and caffeine. Lawmakers accused the companies late last year of prioritising dividends and management bonuses over investment, leaving critical infrastructure to degrade. In October, Britain's regulator ordered water companies to return millions of pounds to customers for failing to meet environmental regulations. Water company bosses can now also face criminal charges if they break environmental rules. Water UK, which represents the companies, said in October that performance was not what it should be, but improvements had been made. Dirty waterways can harm wildlife, ecosystems and human health, and activities like farming and fishing. 'More polluted water requires more treatment, and if we don't monitor what is going into our rivers, we won't know exactly what contaminants we need to remove,' said Woods. Britain's drinking water is among the safest in the world, she added. 'But if we don't stop polluting our freshwater systems, this may not always be the case.' Meanwhile, significant cuts to the EA have made statutory monitoring more difficult, according to Earthwatch Europe and environmental charity The Rivers Trust. Funding for the EA's enforcement work fell by 80%, from £117mil in 2010 to £23mil in 2020, the National Audit Office said. The EA said it was intensifying efforts to hold water companies accountable, testing 4,536 sites last year and aiming for 10,000 inspections this year. For Keri and Annette Lloyd, who run the non-profit community Friends of Bilbrook in South Staffordshire in central England, this blitz builds on work they are already doing. Every month, they test their local river for ammonia, water temperature and acidity and pass on the information to water supplier Severn Trent and to open-sourced data platforms such as FreshWater Watch, also run by Earthwatch Europe. They would like to see a stronger relationship between authorities and residents and said the EA has not been to Bilbrook to sample the water since 2022. '(We use) the old mantra of 'love where you live',' said Keri Lloyd, explaining that he felt the data they collected was not always being used effectively. 'We want it to be valued.' The EA said there were several sampling points near Bilbrook, and the site was monitored on a five-year cycle, to be re-sampled in 2027. 'We are unable to carry out monitoring at all of our sampling points every year,' it said. Michelle Walker, technical director of The Rivers Trust, said citizen science provided valuable resources, especially as government agencies tighten budgets. 'The government doesn't collect much (national data) anymore, and the national data sets are full of holes in time and space,' she said. The trust is working with other organisations to develop national standards for citizen testing, including methods for monitoring water quality, fish populations, macroinvertebrates, bacteria, soil and more, and give citizen science more credibility. 'We encourage an open approach to data gathering and are collaborating across the country with citizen scientists ... but this can't replace all of the other reasons we monitor,' the EA said. Further funding to improve citizen research could come from the billions of pounds set to be spent on monitoring combined sewer overflows, which are pipes that release raw sewage into the environment during heavy rain, Walker said. Building a standardised citizen science programme 'would cost a fraction of what the EA already spends on monitoring and what the water industry is about to spend on theirs', she added. 'You (can) start to engage people about rivers (and) they become advocates for their river. They form friends of the river groups and start to raise funding locally to do habitat improvements. It will return that investment so many times over.' — Reuters
