News

Grant for Arctic river research

Published 11 February 2013

Researchers at the University of Brighton are to monitor river water quality in the Arctic, including one of Europe's best salmon rivers, in a bid to understand the contrasting water quality requirements of different freshwater ecosystems.

The ECOFORS project, which is funded by the European Union, builds on existing research by the team, led by Dr Gary Bilotta of the School of Environment and Technology.

The researchers will be monitoring the water quality of pristine rivers in Iceland and Finland. The project will add to existing water quality research, by Dr Bilotta and PhD student Magdalena Grove, in pristine rivers in the more temperate climate of the UK. These pristine rivers are being used as models of the water quality required to support different freshwater communities in catchments with contrasting environmental characteristics, including climate and geology.

The research will feed into the development of improved water quality guidelines to support healthy freshwater ecosystems – a requirement of the EU Water Framework Directive legislation.

The Arctic research project will be supported by state-of-the-art monitoring equipment provided by Aquaread Ltd, an award-winning designer and manufacturer of water quality monitoring equipment.

Dr Bilotta says: "Freshwater ecosystems are incredibly valuable, providing humans with ecosystem services worth more than $1.7 trillion per annum, but these ecosystems are currently threatened by water pollution. Current water quality guidelines, which are designed to protect a whole range of different freshwater communities against water pollution, are often blanket guideline values with limited scientific basis. Our research aims to address this and improve current water quality guidelines so that firstly they reflect the natural variation in water quality that should be expected in different types of environments, and secondly they are more closely aligned to what is needed to sustain different communities of freshwater organisms."

Dr Bilotta in the river Dee in Scotland