OK, maybe I should lay off the puns. Who am I kidding, this is about weirs, fish passes (or stair cases if you will) and the River Cray - how can I resist?.
Down to business, I've previously posted on this blog about the assessment of water quality and invertebrate communities at specific points along the upper River Cray (http://urbantrout.blogspot.com/2009/02/this-from-ashe-hurst-river-keeper-on.html and http://urbantrout.blogspot.com/2009/03/bugs-in-cray.html). Having done that, and combined it with the information I collated in my initial Advisory Visit (http://www.wildtrout.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=166&Itemid=224) report - a number of potential sites that could benefit from habitat restoration work were identified.
However, another important factor to consider would be how best to target restoration sites such that the maximum benefit could be gleaned when weirs and other barriers start to be made passable. There are EA plans afoot to tackle such barriers, so let's be smart and understand how for the same amount of effort on the habitat - what would be the greatest length of linked high quality river?
Here is an example of how weirs are distributed on part of the River:
Although a final decision has yet to be taken - there appears to be potential to overlay sites that are extremely ripe for habitat restoration (and that experience good water quality) onto very long linked sections with the easement of only one (or, even better, two) barriers.
Down to business, I've previously posted on this blog about the assessment of water quality and invertebrate communities at specific points along the upper River Cray (http://urbantrout.blogspot.com/2009/02/this-from-ashe-hurst-river-keeper-on.html and http://urbantrout.blogspot.com/2009/03/bugs-in-cray.html). Having done that, and combined it with the information I collated in my initial Advisory Visit (http://www.wildtrout.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=166&Itemid=224) report - a number of potential sites that could benefit from habitat restoration work were identified.
However, another important factor to consider would be how best to target restoration sites such that the maximum benefit could be gleaned when weirs and other barriers start to be made passable. There are EA plans afoot to tackle such barriers, so let's be smart and understand how for the same amount of effort on the habitat - what would be the greatest length of linked high quality river?
Here is an example of how weirs are distributed on part of the River:
Although a final decision has yet to be taken - there appears to be potential to overlay sites that are extremely ripe for habitat restoration (and that experience good water quality) onto very long linked sections with the easement of only one (or, even better, two) barriers.Hopefully this is a literal and figurative example of "Joined-up thinking". And that, dear reader is a terrible pun as well as gratuitous use of management-speak jargon. Two for the price of one.
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