The ARK Citizen Science Online Platform supports the Riverfly System that uses a central database to store the monthly data collected by trained ARK riverfly monitor volunteers. Riverfly Monitoring is a national citizen science initiative, overseen by The Riverfly Partnership. Action for the River Kennet (ARK) is the Riverfly Hub for both the Kennet and Pang catchments.
Indicator groups of freshwater invertebrates are identified and counted to check the health of the river and pick up otherwise undetected pollution incidents. Monitoring is carried out at fixed sites on the River Kennet and its tributaries; and now also the River Pang.
The images below left are just some of the invertebrates that are monitored (in clockwise order: cased caddis larva (trichoptera), caseless caddis larva (trichoptera), freshwater shrimp (gammarus) and mayfly nymph (ephemeridae) and the map below right shows the many different locations along the river where riverfly data is collected.
ARK is a registered charity and is the Rivers Trust for both the Kennet and Pang catchments.
For riverfly monitoring enquiries contact: anna@riverkennet.org