From Seattle to Atlanta via Boston, Denver and Salt Lake City, a new study by the United States Geological Survey examines the varying effects of urbanisation on different stream and river ecosystems … while the UK’s Environment Agency commits to massive £3.5 million deculverting of the River Roch in Rochdale’s historic centre (extra BBC footage […]
Archive for the tag 'Urban river restoration'
January 9 2013
Challenge Buxton 2013: Who’s up for restoring the top of the Derbyshire Wye?
Even the smartest towns sometimes have dirty places, down the inaccessible backs of car parks and petrol stations… and in those places you’ll often find trout! In truth, this particular dirty place was hard to miss when I visited the top of the Derbyshire Wye at the start of last season: an outsize plunge pool […]
December 20 2012
Urban river funding plans for Burnley and south London: Why we’re crossing everything for 2013…
For many rivers trusts and river restoration groups across the UK, the last working week before Christmas has been a blur of deadlines: final drafts of reports on projects successfully completed, budgets and planning for work running up to the end of the financial year, and plans and applications for projects somewhere out there in […]
December 15 2012
Urbantrout sidecasts: Saturday 15 December
Urban fishing bonus: starlings throw shapes in the winter sky over Taunton’s Obridge viaduct (above, via the Daily Mail) Discover tenkara: Paul Gaskell, John Pearson and Stuart Crofts host a have-a-go day for Sheffield’s SPRITE volunteers The Wandle Trust wins £1m+ funding for Water Framework Directive-related urban river restoration across south London City centre salmon […]
November 21 2012
Film night: Fish passage comes to Meadowhall
Rather smaller in scale than the record-breaking demolition of the PNW’s Elwha dams, but probably no less significant for other reasons, is the very recent installation of a £300,000 multi-species technical fish and eel pass on the previously-impassable Hadfield weir in Sheffield. Via the Don Catchment Rivers Trust and A Torn Construction comes this fascinating […]
November 2 2012
Film night: Toxic bioaccumulation in post-industrial rivers… are urban fish safe to eat?
This is an issue that’s kept UK-based river restorationists awake at night for years – but never with quite enough evidence to convince regulatory colleagues that toxic bioaccumulation of arsenic, mercury, PCBs, endocrine-disrupting flame retardants and other contaminants probably works the same at the apex of our inland waterways’ food webs as it does in […]
October 18 2012
Urbantrout sidecasts: Thursday 18 October
Gravel cleaning, cake and urban fishing: just another World Rivers Day in south London Even more London stuff: the Wandle’s first finished rock ramp fish pass, Thames 21’s Cleaner Thames Challenge, and the Wandle Trust’s call for education volunteers Love your river: hosted by Thames Water and the River Chess Association, double Olympic rowing gold […]
September 20 2012
Urbantrout sidecasts: Thursday 20 September
Trout in (maybe slightly less Dirty, market-towny sorts of) Places: Urban fly-fishing breaks cover in this week’s Shooting Times magazine What’s Environment Agency NW planning for Manchester’s River Medlock? We’ll investigate and let you know! Digging up the river: after the Wandle’s latest pollution incident, fish passage work continues as planned… … while Peter Lapsley […]
September 2 2012
Weir, what weir? Bolton’s Croal shows us how it’s done…
As any fule kno experienced river restorationist knows, there’s really not much point in trying to work against a river’s natural processes: in the end it’ll do what it wants to do anyhow, so you might as well just get out of the way. Which is why we’ve been so brim-full delighted to read the latest […]
August 31 2012
Film night: Fish pass clearance by SPRITE (plus a quickfire tenkara masterclass!)
Fish Pass Clearance by SPRITE from Paul Gaskell on Vimeo. For the second time in as many months, a dozen SPRITE volunteers have been out in the midday sun, clearing around 8 tonnes of sand, branches and other debris to get the fish pass on Sheffield’s Niagara Weir working again… … raising a very valid […]
