CITIZEN scientists in the catchment of the River Wye have now taken over 50,000 water samples in an extraordinary show of people-power to monitor the health of an ailing river.

They’re calling on the government to match their commitment by acting on their data to restore the river to health.

Over 500 volunteers have contributed to this effort since 2020 to test the water quality of the River Wye and its surrounding rivers and streams.

This community effort monitors far more locations, more regularly, than the government agencies, providing a more granular view of the health of the Wye catchment.

Various agencies use the data collected by the volunteers, but the groups undertaking these tests want to see far more action from these bodies to clean up the areas of concern and prevent ongoing pollution.

Anglers with the Wye Salmon Association took the first citizen science tests in the Wye catchment, inspiring a wider movement to develop. Since 2021, Friends of the River Wye and CPRE Herefordshire have also had armies of trained volunteers contributing to the project.

All data collected by the different groups is available to view on one ground-breaking data platform called WyeViz, created by a volunteer and trustee of Friends of the River Wye. This database has been viewed over 100,000 times.

In England, the Environment Agency said they carried out 183 farm inspections in the Wye area during 2024/25, of which 78 received ‘enforcement responses’ - all of which were either warning letters or site warnings. There were no penalties for breaches of environmental regulations.

Pat Stirling from Friends of the River Wye said: “This huge voluntary effort shows how much people love their local rivers and are willing to devote time to monitoring them.

“Our citizen scientists are the first line of defence for our rivers, alerting the authorities to pollution incidents and chronic problems. We have a league table showing the most polluted areas and we need to see improvements now.

“The agencies can’t just advise polluters to clean up their act, they need to make polluters pay to prevent pollution being profitable. At present, good farmers doing the right thing are penalised by the lack of a fair playing field.”

Andrew McRobb from CPRE Herefordshire said, “We started doing this monitoring because the agencies told us that they were lacking data.

“We’ve delivered data in spades and they need to act on it. Over five years of sterling work by volunteer citizen scientists has delivered evidence for the agencies and governments and led the way to the government funding a long overdue comprehensive Wye Catchment Plan.

“We can identify the problems, but only the government agencies can enforce the actions necessary to deliver real change.”

Stuart Smith from Wye Salmon Association said: “Our brilliant volunteers, have shown amazing resilience over the last four years and we’re very proud of their efforts to provide data aimed at helping progress to improve water quality in the Wye catchment.

“We now need governmental bodies to raise their game and match that effort and commitment.”