Skip to main content

Sheffield Has a Formal Strategy for its Waterways; Incorporating its Urban and Rural Catchment areas





Some readers may have already seen the various pieces that I've contributed on managing surface water in urban and rural catchments (e.g. videos embedded at the bottom of this post) alongside the organisational role to Sheffield's first One Big River event. This was a week of activities focused on the rivers of the Steel City and was timed to coincide with both the River Restoration Centre's Annual Conference (held for the first time at Sheffield Hallam University: http://www.therrc.co.uk/rrc_conferences.php) as well as the formal signing (and Cabinet adoption) of the Waterways Strategy.

The various community and volunteer events that formed the week-long programme (https://sites.google.com/site/sheffieldonebigriver/main-events-program included a family-day of riverside events run by the Sheffield branch of the Trout in the Town project (SPRITE) and the Wild Trout Trust. Everyone involved really enjoyed talking to local residents and visitors and showing them the life that abounds in the river via both bug sampling displays and also a demonstration of the "Mayfly in the Classroom" apparatus. This also provided an excellent opportunity to hand out the materials containing contact details and descriptions of SPRITE's monthly activities to people who have been living close to the patch of river corridor that the group looks after - but who had not yet heard of all the good things that are done by these dedicated volunteers.



Unfortunately, the downpours in the run up to the SPRITE/WTT event meant that the planned water crowfoot planting was not safe to carry out - so this will be rescheduled for more appropriate conditions. However, there was ample opportunity to introduce some newcomers to the activity of fly fishing (of both British and Japanese varieties!) in the park where our Gazebo of displays and information was installed for the day.

I hope that we can run a similar event next year and, in the meantime, please check out the collated information on this inaugural event on all the web pages here: https://sites.google.com/site/sheffieldonebigriver/home

Also, please have a look at the important and surprising information about managing surface water for the benefit of society and wildlife:







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Presume to Remove Weirs? (with River Dove Case Study)

Weirs and the Backwards Ways that Rivers Work One of my favourite sayings on river restoration is a mangled quote from a movie

"...boxing is an unnatural act. Everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step backwards...but step back too far and you ain't fighting at all".

So my mangled version starts out "Everything in rivers is backwards...". Basically, I never seem to run out of new examples of "what SEEMS to happen in a river is actually the complete opposite of what really happens".



The rest of this article looks at many of the "backwards" things about weirs and rivers - and finishes off with a real-world case-study that is playing out right now on the River Dove.

One spoiler alert is that, from an ecological point of view, it is almost always safe to assume that:

The best biological outcome for a river is the removal of some or all of an artificial weir. 
Now, I don't expect you to believe that…
3 comments
Read more

Oban Trout in the Town and Argyll Fisheries Trust

It was my great pleasure to travel up to the west coast of Scotland on Sunday (24th June)to meet up with Alan Kettle-White and Daniel Brazier of Argyll Fisheries Trust . Staying over until Tuesday enabled me to get in a habitat survey of the Black Lynn Burn in Oban on the Monday as well as meeting local stakeholders such as businessman Graham MacQueen of MacQueen Brothers who are keen to have local community members discover, re-engage and value their local urban river. Hopping into the river to walk along the riverbed was the best way to get to know the burn.
It didn't take long to find signs of life:


In fact, away from prying eyes, there was some very good habitat- particularly for juvenile trout (although also a lot of Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed also in evidence!)



As long as this small structure does not conceal services (such as sewage/gas pipes or electrical cables) and appropriate permission can be gained, the variety in depth and flow upstream…
2 comments
Read more

The Wild Trout Trust: A Film by Chalkstream Fly

Here is a great short piece that captures what the work of the Wild Trout Trust is all about. It was made for (and broadcast on) the very first "World Fishing Day" - a 24hr live fishing programme created by FishingTV.com. It features TV personalities (and WTT President & Vice President respectively!) Jon Beer and Matthew Wright as well as Director of the Trust, Shaun Leonard.


You can see more work by the film-makers on Chalkstreamfly.co.uk and, of course, you can join the Wild Trout Trust here: WTT Membership

Paul Gaskell (Trout in the Town Conservation Officer)
Post a Comment
Read more