Citizen water quality monitoring in Britain

Over four days in June 2024, over two and half thousand volunteers from around Britain measured their local water quality as part of the ‘Great UK WaterBlitz’, collecting more than 1,300 datasets. Participants were provided with easy-to-use testing kits to measure the levels of nitrates and phosphates in their local river, stream or lake. Participants then submitted their results online, which then appeared on a public event map.

The results showed that 75 percent of Britain’s waterways are in poor ecological health.

The ‘Great UK WaterBlitz’ is a biannual campaign to help build a national picture of water quality across the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom’s Office for Environmental Protection noted that the data would not have been available without the support of people across the United Kingdom and called for more citizen science testing.