Volunteers Sought to Support Teifi Citizen Science Projects

The community meetings held last year directed the Save the Teifi steering group to establish Citizen Science projects aimed at monitoring water quality and enhancing the health of the river. The steering group has been working with other stakeholders to secure funds to support the projects and ensure that the results will be utilised by relevant bodies and policy makers. Two collaborative projects have been established that will collect data from the Teifi and its tributaries. The Citizen Science elements of the projects are summarised as (with further details provided below):-

• Outfall Safari – In collaboration with West Wales River Trust – involves visual monitoring and photographic recording of outfalls and environmental issues.
• Water Quality Monitoring – In collaboration with Ceredigion County Council and the Teifi Nutrient Management Board- involves water quality testing of samples at the river side and recording other environmental issues.

We are seeking volunteers to be involved in these projects, ideally in both. If you are interested then please send an email to  volunteer@teifi.one.  It would be helpful if you could outline where you are based along the river and/or its tributaries, whether you are interested in a particular project or both and if you are willing for us to pass your email details onto West Wales River Trust so they can organise training for the Outfall Safari project.

Outfall Safari Project

In collaboration with West Wales River Trust - see this Forum Topic for more details.

The project involves recording visual information  supported by photographs about the location and nature of outfall pipes that enter a river or stream. Additional information about the location of invasive plant species, potential sediment inputs and evidence of pollution can also be noted. The information can be recorded via an app on a mobile phone and training will be provided. The project can be completed whilst undertaking a walk by a river or stream and new information (e.g. evidence of a pollution incident) can be added about the same stretch of river.

This Citizen Science activity is part of a larger project that involves developing a People’s Plan for the Teifi and broadening the communities understanding of the issues facing the river through engagement via local Primary Schools.

Water and Environmental Quality Monitoring

In collaboration with Ceredigion County Council and the Teifi Nutrient Management Board.

Ceredigion County Council has secured funds to install 4 mobile high quality water monitoring sondes along the Afon Teifi. These aim to monitor a variety of parameters including phosphates in real time at various sites along the river. The council have also purchased kits to support Citizen Science. They would like these kits to be used to take measurements at other sites and in particular on tributaries so that the following can be achieved:-

1. A set of baseline measurements of water quality are taken at a far higher density than currently achieved.
2. Water quality along tributaries and the main river are taken
3. Citizen Science can help to identify potential problem sections of the river and its tributaries which can then be monitored by using the mobile high quality sondes.
4. Modifications to land use and point pollution sources can be assessed to determine if positive changes are being achieved.
5. The data will be freely available and Citizen Scientists will be encouraged to help in the analysis
   

The collaboration is attempting to ensure that a wide coverage of water quality is achieved and that the results can identify possible pollution sources and inform changes that try to improve water quality. The Citizen Scientists will be asked to take some measurements near the sonde sites to ensure their results are comparable with the high quality results. They also may be asked to monitor specific sections of the river and its tributaries so pollution sources can be identified and actions assessed.

Citizen Scientists with appropriate skills will also have the opportunity to analyse the data that is being collected in real time to report issues and identify patterns.

The data being collected by the Council will be the most detailed so far collected along the river and should significantly add to our understanding of selected nutrients in the system. Given the sondes will take numerous measurements every hour for an extended time period it will be far in excess of the measurements taken by NRW.

Citizen Science on TV

Callum Firth, Chair of Save the Teifi, was interviewed in ITV's Coast and Country broadcast in November 2023. He was gathering information at the confluence with the Plysgog - tributary of the Teifi.

Sorry for the poor quality of this video as this was captured using a mobile phone.