River Monitoring on The Worth It is said that water is the source of life, however, very few people fully understand the diversity of life that exists under the surface of the River Worth. Some may have leaned over a bridge and seen a brown trout and others may have spent a happy summer day catching bullheads in jars paddling in the river. There is however a whole web of other life hiding in the river. The volunteers of the River Worth Friends and Aire Rivers Trust survey year-round to assess the health of the rivers hidden wildlife.
Supporting these fish in the food chain, is a whole host of river bugs that call the riverbed home. Every one occupies its own special place in the river habitat and can tell us much about the river's problems. Indeed these river bugs have been compared to the coal miners canary. In historic mining, a canary would be taken down a mine to provide an early warning system for polluted air in a mine, as they succumb to the bad air long before the miners would pass out and die of suffocation. In the same way, the loss of small insects in the river can warn us there are pollution problems. We have a network of volunteers working in pairs along the river to sample fixed sites, once a month between March and October. These riverfly volunteers look for eight groups of bugs in the river to assess pollution levels:
To gather a sample of these bugs, monitors undertake four minutes of collection, where they kick gravel and turn stones on the riverbed. This releases insects into a net, so they can then be sorted and counted in a large tray. The results are then logged on the National Riverfly Partnership Database for review by Aire Rivers Trust and the Environment Agency to help build a picture of the ongoing health of our rivers. Where the results show problems volunteers are able to re-take the sample to check the results and report problems to the Environment Agency for further investigation. Essentially making our riverfly monitoring volunteers the local eyes and ears of the Environment Agency for emerging pollution problems.
During the Summer of 2024 River Worth Friends in partnership with Aire Rivers Trust and Keighley Big Local are running a number of taster sessions along the River Worth and North Beck for members of the public to experience riverfly monitoring, with the aim of expanding our local network of trained river monitors along the Worth Valley. We have dates planned through Keighley on Thursday evenings 7-9pm on the following dates: June 20th – North Dean Allotments June 27th – The Walk July 4th – Damems Nature Reserve July 11th – Aireworth Grove  Kick sampling amongst the rubbish on North Beck. We are also running a qualification day on Saturday 13th July at Hainsworth Wood Community Centre, for volunteers who have completed 2 taster sessions, to achieve their National Riverfly Monitoring Certificate of Competence. This enables them to begin monitoring the health of the River Worth. To find out more about getting involved and to book onto any of the sessions please head over to the Aire Rivers Trust website via this link Riverfly - Aire Rivers Trust or contact sam.riley-gunn@aireriverstrust.org.uk Not only will you be helping to check for pollution, it's also a great way to find out more about the ecology of the river  A handsome stonefly nymph from North Beck.
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