SWEPT: Callout for citizen scientists to test water quality!

The Surveying the Waterway Environment for Pollution Threats (SWEPT) project sees citizen scientists testing nitrate and phosphate levels of freshwater watercourses. We are looking for volunteers to monitor coastal streams around Carmarthenshire.

About the project

The first SWEPT project took place in 2018/19 and helped to build a detailed picture of the levels of nutrients in freshwater entering the Milford Haven waterway within the Pembrokeshire Marine SAC using citizen science. A second iteration of this project ran in 2020 surveying coastal streams within the Pembrokeshire Marine SAC to raise awareness of the fact that nutrient pollution is also widespread along the open coast of Pembrokeshire as well as within the Milford Haven waterway catchment.

The 2024 SWEPT project is to run again this autumn covering a much greater area, with surveying being carried out in Anglesey, the Llŷn Peninsula, Cardigan Bay, Carmarthen Bay & estuaries, Pembrokeshire & the Severn Estuary. These surveys will use the same methodology as previous iterations of the project to enable comparative analysis.

Important information

• Coastal streams to be sampled will fall within the unmarked area of the attached map. Specific sites will be allocated to volunteers and we will do our best to accommodate preferences of location.
• There will be two sampling weekends: 9/10 November and 7/8 December (sampling on the Friday and Monday around these weekends is also possible).
• Volunteers will receive two test kits per allocated site.
• Training will take place in the latter half of October - dates to be sent out soon.
• More information and reports from previous SWEPT projects are available at: https://www.pembrokeshiremarinesac.org.uk/swept/

To sign up

If you are interested in volunteering as part of the SWEPT project, or have any questions about the project, please send an email to my colleague Harriet Thompson-Ball: harrietthompson@westwalesriverstrust.org