River Water Testing | Zero Carbon Guildford

Thriving rivers, thriving communities!

Our citizen scientists are on a mission to restore our local waterways and say no to sewage!

500

people trained, with over 100 regular testers

1st

community-led lab testing E.coli in the UK!

1,479

river quality tests conducted by volunteers

76%

of regular testers taught others how to test, training an average of 36 people!

Unleash Your Inner Scientist...

Water Quality Testing in Surrey

Watch this fantastic Community Water Lab video to see local collaboration in action!

Over the last 3 years, ZERO, The River Wey Trust, and Water Rangers have created a fantastic collaborative water testing programme, empowering communities to restore and

We've got over 100 registered testers who log data on our opensource platforms at nearly 250 location! But with school visits and events we've actually trained around 500 Surrey residents to understand the health of their local river.

Starting pretty much from scratch, we now have 9 established water testing hubs in south west Surrey as part of this 'citizen science' project, and in April 2024 we opened our brand new Community Water Lab, in partnership with Uni of Surrey, to test E.coli levels in the Wey and Tillingbourne. The lab is part of The River Trust's CaSTCo project, funded b OFWAT, putting us at the forefront of 'radical step-change in the contribution of Citizen Science & Community Monitoring to evidence-based Integrated Catchment Management.'

I love being part of Water Rangers because it has brought together a dispersed group of locals who are practical, informed, care about the natural world who have a ‘can do’ attitude. We are a tiny but important part of a bigger movement working towards healthy rivers.

-Alyson Canton

"Water Rangers has been such an inspirational organisation to be involved with. So much enthusiasm to make a difference to improving water quality; so many knowledgable people and so much to learn. It’s been great to feel that there is something practical a citizen volunteer can do that could change things for the better."

- Kate Riley

I love the community which has built up around Water Rangers and love chatting to passers by about what we are doing in terms of testing to monitor water quality, it’s a topic many people are interested in - and there’s a sense of achievement in trying to work towards a goal of improved river water quality.

-Alan Thorogood

Browse the Water Rangers interactive presentation to learn more...

River Testing Goals

Our water testing project is working toward simple goals - understand the levels of pollution in Surrey rivers, and make them clean enough for wildlife, otters, and humans.

It's a lofty ambition - especially given the starting point - but we've got a great team to help get there...as well as huge volunteer power!

Kat Kavanagh is founder and executive director of Water Rangers strolled through them. Water Rangers is a Canadian-based charity, which facilitates and supports river water testing projects right across the world. Alistair Young is a Trustee of the River Wey Trust, who are responsible for our section of the river, and alongside our volunteers and staff they have collaboratively put together a programme of citizen science river water testing to help monitor and protect our local waterways.

We're also teaming up with FreshWaterWatch, to allow our data to be shared shared and used by more researchers, right across the globe! FreshWaterWatch has conducted water quality blitzes for the entire Thames watershed (of which we're a part!) and we're excited to continue to collaborate with them to collect water quality observations!

Why Is Community-Led River Testing Important?

It’s pretty easy to get sucked into thinking that without Government enforcing clear rules on those that keep polluting our rivers there’s minimal chance of us succeeding in cleaning them up. But if we took that attitude to everything we’d never get anywhere! So instead of getting all doom, gloom & algal bloom we want to take positive action to sort out Guildford’s waterways!

There are enormous gaps in river quality data. And worse, the Environment Agency is frequently criticised for the testing that is conducted as being infrequent, or intentionally misleading.

It would be impossible for those working in the field to comprehensively test all waterways in the UK - and that’s where citizen scientists come in! Citizen Science programmes collate data through open source platforms, building an enormous repository of data which can then be used for study by actual scientists, who analyse the data collected by you to build a picture of river health.

So testing and monitoring your local waterways is absolutely something that you can do to take a positive approach to this critical issue, not just in Guildford, but wherever you are!

Testing Creates Stewardship

There’s a strong correlation showing that the more you do to tackle the climate crisis, the more positive you feel that we’ll avert the worst of it. Positivity breeds action, and vice versa.

This holds true when it comes to river quality testing as well! When people test and interact with their local waterways, they begin to feel protective of them. This is a critical piece of tackling climate change, by building nature connectedness to help us remember the vital roles our ecosystems play in supporting life on earth. This bears out in Water Rangers own research, and they’re currently working with McGill and Carleton universities to study this relationship. Research - Water Rangers

Water Rangers sampling of their participants demonstrates that people who get out and test water also:

Leads to a greater appreciation of wildlife and local ecosystems
Encourages you to venture out to new testing sites
Helps increase awareness of your surroundings, identifying and caring about pollution and other negative impacts
Prompts testers to think about other ways you can protect your local ecosystem

River Pollution in Surrey

‘Britain’s Rivers Come Back To Life!’

That was the headline proudly shouted by The Independent in December 2010.

Serious water pollution incidents had halved since 2001, and invertebrate populations - a great way of measuring river health - had been rising steadily. All the evidence showed that we absolutely can tackle environmental degradation when government and communities prioritise protection for the health of local residents and ecosystems.

Fast forward 12 years and the picture is bleak. Rivers not just in Surrey, but across the entire UK, have been impacted by a decade of pollution through lack of care, inadequate funding and deregulation allowing unaccountable water companies to empty sewage overspills into our waterways.

Something In The Water (and it's probably sewage).

In 2009, 14% of rivers had achieved ‘Good’ ecological status (still an embarrassingly low number, but an improvement nonetheless). But by 2024 that figure hasn't increased at all. The most horrifying part is that today, 0% of the UK’s rivers are given 'Good’ chemical status.

To put into context just how far and how rapidly environmental standards have slipped, as recently as 2016, 97% of rivers were achieving 'Good' chemical status!

The standards of testing have changed slightly since 2016, but this drastic decline demonstrates the reality that agricultural runoff, sewage discharge, and chemical pollution are having on our local streams and rivers. Waterways that are our communal right to enjoy are now simply dumping grounds for polluters emboldened by weakening of environmental protection.

Climate Change and River Quality

As well as chemical pollution, warming temperature averages due to climate change are also having a significant impact on our rivers and water ways.

UK rivers have seen an average 1-2°C rise in temperatures over the last couple of decades, resulting in a significant increase in growth of harmful algae. This, combined with the bonfire of environmental protections, has led to a scenario in which the UK boasts a grand total of zero designated river bathing spots. In fact, of the 30 countries who designate and monitor wild bathing sites, we rank 24th out of 30.

On top of that, the climate crisis is driving more frequent and more intense weather events. Increased frequency in flooding driven by climate change backs up sewers, which then overflow into our waterways through storm drains and other outlets, creating pollution incidents. Scotland is the worst hit area of the UK, with volume of flood water increasing by as much as 55% in the last 50 years!

Healthy Rivers Help To Regulate The Global Carbon Cycle

There's a vicious cycle - or feedback loop - at play here. River ecosystems in good health can actually help to tackle climate change. Our river catchments drain large amounts of carbon and nitrogen from the surrounding landscape, some of which is naturally released into the atmosphere, and some of which is sent out to sea and stored in our ocean carbon sinks - much like forests or peatlands are known for storing carbon, our oceans are the biggest carbon sink and hold about a quarter of human-generated emissions.

So a river system in good health will help to lock away carbon, but given the terrible state of rivers across the globe due to many forms of pollution and increasing temperatures they are now contributing to accelerated climate change due to how rivers in poor health behave.

Microorganisms in our rivers convert nitrogen compounds and human pollution into greenhouse gases

This is because the combination of warmer temperatures and increased pollution creates a situation where we have more microorganisms, in rivers with less dissolved oxygen due to pollution. So these bacteria mineralise the pollution (including sewage) which produces carbon dioxide and methane (with a global warming potential 20x higher than CO2), as well as converting the nitrates swept into the river system into nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas.

So healthy rivers aren't just key for leisure, sport, and the local economy, they are essential to keeping the local ecosystems which support us, as well as helping to balance the carbon cycle at a global scale.

ZERO's Community Water Lab

168 High Street, GU1 3HW

what3words: paint.nets.attend

We are extremely proud to have opened the first community-led water testing lab in the south east - possibly the UK!

The Lab is a joint venture between ZERO, Water Rangers, River Wey Trust, and University of Surrey, and is one of the community research focuses of OFWAT's CaSTCo programme, monitoring river quality across the country.

What Does The Water Testing Lab Do?

Lewis from South East Rivers Trust and Stella from University of Surrey test an E.coli sample in the Community Water Lab

Teaming up with University of Surrey, we have been able to create a space dedicated to monitoring and testing E.coli levels in some of Surrey's rivers.

To ensure our readings are accurate, our tests are validated by the University. using very sensitive equipment, so we can ensure that our testing accurately reflects the state of our rivers.

Our citizen scientists test key location on a Friday morning, and then we examine the samples in the lab the following day to test E.coli concentrations in the water.

Surrey River E.Coli Levels

You won't be surprised to hear that there are shockingly high levels of E.coli being measured in our local rivers. We opened the river quality testing lab in April, so we are still building up a picture which shows trends of E.coli levels, which is a more reliable way to assess the situation with single measurements.

That said, the advisable upper levels of E.coli for human activity is 1000 CFU/1000ml.

We have seen spikes of up to 20 times higher than this, with no surprise that the worst levels can be found downstream of water treatment facilities, likely due to sewage dumping by water companies.

Help Us To Keep Testing for E.Coli in Surrey

We aim to keep monitoring our rivers with a goal of making them healthy enough for wildlife, otters, and humans to enjoy - but it's not cheap!

Chemical testing and E.coli monitoring cost money, and we are looking for sponsorship of several future Swimming Spots to help us continue the project. If you are able to support an impactful local project, run by Surrey chairties, then please get in touch today.

Now You Can Sponsor our Innovative Community Water Testing Project!

River Water Monitoring is Expensive!

We use quality water testing kits to monitor river pollution levels in Surrey. Nitrate and phosphate testing kits need replenishing, and the E.coli tests are expensive.

Thankfully we've had some help from some great supporters, including Surrey County Council Members Fiona Davidson and Angela Goodwin,

Sponsor A Swimming Spot

Our goal is to get Surrey's rivers back into a state of health where we can swim in our rivers without getting sick, and so that we see otters back in our local waterways!

Read our flier to find out how you can help...

If you can sponsor a testing site then we'd love to chat to you!

Please get in touch with kat@waterrangers.ca

We test river pollution at over 200 locations along Surrey's waterways!

In the last 3 years, collaborative efforts to restore Surrey's waterways have seen 9 testing hubs set up in Surrey!

You can track all of ZERO's water quality results, as well as those of our pals over at The River Wey Trust, at the Water Rangers weblinks below:

Guildford water quality: Group Pages

See results from the different groups testing local spots, including ZERO and The River Wey Trust

ZERO water quality results: overview

See an overview of water quality test results for Guildford's rivers

ZERO River Wey testing: trendline

View the trends of Guildford river health over selected timelines

Volunteer for River Testing in Guildford

We've trained over 200 volunteers to test our local waterways, and these fantastic 'citizen scientists' have been critical in our community-led efforts to highlight river pollution.

Led by Kat Kavanagh, the Director of international testing organisation Water Rangers, and Alistair Young of the River Wey Trust, our testers are an enthusiastic bunch who love a good time, including an occasional team social with a dip in the river (the clean parts, obviously).

We always need more people, so get involved today!

CLICK HERE TO VOLUNTEER...!

-Alyson Canton

- Kate Riley

-Alan Thorogood

How You Can Help:

Friday and Saturday mornings are when the action happens! That's when we usually collect the samples and do chemistry tests along the river, and then use our Community Water Lab to assess the results. But there's a range of tasks which you can volunteer for, and once you're trained you can be flexible with your timing:

Collect Samples - get down to your local river, conduct chemistry and invertebrate tests, log the results
Lab testing - use our community water lab to analyse samples and check for E.coli levels
Fundraising - testing is expensive! Help us find more sponsorship and income streams to ensure we can replenish our testing kits
Comms and engagement - our water rangers always need help to shout about pollution levels, find new members, and put out press releases and social media

Thriving rivers, thriving communities!

Water Quality Testing in Surrey

Something In The Water (and it's probably sewage).

Climate Change and River Quality

Got a dirty river story?

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Thriving rivers, thriving communities!

Water Quality Testing in Surrey​

Got a dirty river story?

Subscribe to our mailing list

Water Quality Testing in Surrey