Newcastle University

Share you local knowledge and become a citizen scientist to help manage and care for your local water environment...

Would you like to be involved in the Haltwhistle Burn project and become a citizen scientist?

What is the project looking for? The Haltwhistle Burn project is looking for volunteers to take part in monitoring the Haltwhistle Burn water environment.

Who can take part? Anyone can take part - perhaps you live in Haltwhistle or within the catchment, surrounding villages, work in Haltwhistle or just past in and out of the catchment. You might also want to take part as a one-off experience.

Why does the Burn need monitoring? Data collected about the catchment will be shared with the rest of the community and researchers. This will help them to understand the catchment better and how it responds during, for example, heavy rainfall events. Appropriate mitigation measures can therefore be implemented.

When will monitoring begin? A monitoring plan will be implemented across the catchment in Spring 2014. However.. you could take part now by just taking photos of the river and river level gauge boards and submitting them through Twitter or by email.

How can I get involve? There will be a range of monitoring tools and techniques available. If you are interested, please get in touch via email eleanor.starkey@ncl.ac.uk. You could also fill out the form at the bottom of this page as a starter to find out where, what and how you can get involved. There are already some volunteers monitoring the status of the Burn and have provided positive feedback on their experiences: 

 

"This is all a very useful learning experience for me" Member of the Haltwhistle Burn River Watch Group, January 2014	"I regularly walk the lower end of the Burn so I am happy to help!"                       Member of the Haltwhistle Burn River Watch Group, February 2014
"The water quality training cards look really professional... the monitoring activities look fun!" Member of the Haltwhistle Community, August 2014	"Thank you for letting the children have a go at monitoring the Burn. We would definitely want to do it again next term" Teacher from Haltwhistle Community Campus, July 2014
"Thank you for your interest and enthusiasm, showing us the catchment project" "Can I take some of the pH strips home with me? It will be interesting to see how it alters during the winter runoff". Participant on the Haltwhistle Walking Festival (Citizen Science speciality walk), October 2014.