Become a Citizen Scientist

Help improve the health of rivers around Greater London and beyond by gathering data

One of the best ways you can help us make a lasting difference to the rivers around London and the wider Thames River Basin is by becoming a citizen scientist. A citizen scientist is a volunteer who is trained to collect data and contributes to wider monitoring schemes. The citizen scientists we train and support collect a variety of different types of data, including on water quality, aquatic invertebrates and plastic pollution.

We use the data you collect to bring about change by sharing it with key decision makers like the Environment Agency, Thames Water and local councils. By sharing the data with academics, universities and the media, we raise awareness of the issues that affect our rivers.

The high-quality long-term data collected by our citizen scientists is improving knowledge about the health of waterways and landscapes across the Thames Basin and influencing change for the benefit of rivers, wildlife and communities.

Get involved!

Report every pollution event you see!

If you see a pollution incident on your local river, report it immediately to BOTH the Environment Agency and Thames Water!

More Information about Citizen Science Activities

Lots of citizen science activities are already happening in river catchments across London, so check out your local river catchment partnership’s webpage!

Not sure which catchment partnership you’re interested in? Discover your local river catchment partnership here:

Thames21 is involved in citizen science in many catchments across Greater London in the following ways:

Water Quality Projects

CaSTCo

We are a partner in the Catchment Thinking Systems Cooperative (CaSTCo) Project led by Rivers Trust and United Utilities, which is looking to standardise citizen science monitoring methods (like the phosphate Hanna Checker) to produce robust data that can be integrated with other datasets, like those from the Environment Agency.

Thames21 is focusing on water quality monitoring for the CaSTCo Project. We support many of the amazing, dedicated people regularly collecting water quality data that feed into wider catchment monitoring programmes. These citizen scientists upload their data to Water Rangers. Check out the below video to see the Dagenham Brook Action Group and Philly (Thames21) testing the ammonia and dissolved phosphate concentrations of the water around a polluting outfall.

EMPOWER Rivers

We are currently delivering the EMPOWER Rivers Project, which is helping to empower communities to take action for their local watercourses through training courses and grants.

We train citizen scientists in the Urban Riverfly Monitoring Initative (RMI) methodology and through our new water quality monitoring course involving devices that measure physical and chemical parameters of water quality like temperature, conductivity, dissolved phosphate concentration and ammonia concentration. (More info on our water quality training course is coming soon!) Citizen scientists are uploading data to Water Rangers – check out their findings here.

Find out more about the project by watching the video below.

Reclaim Our Rivers

We are training up citizen scientists to monitor the water quality of sites aiming to get Bathing Water Designation through the Reclaim Our Rivers Project. Click here to see if there are any bathing water quality projects happening near you this bathing season.

Litter and Plastic Pollution Projects

  • We monitor litter pollution along the main River Thames through the Thames River Watch Programme.
  • We run the annual Plasticblitz to promote collective action across the UK to address the issue of plastic pollution and stop plastic from entering our rivers.
  • We were involved in the Plastic Free Mersey Project near Liverpool and Manchester – one of its aims was to understand the sources of plastic waste to reduce plastic pollution in the Mersey Catchment.

Any questions?

Please email us at citizenscience@thames21.org.uk!