Water testing continues to play a large role in the project:

Tributary water testing 

Over six days in August and September 2023, 36 YDRT volunteers and staff took 162 samples from nine main tributaries running into the Wharfe upstream of Ilkley bathing water designation point. This was a collaboration between volunteer Citizen Scientists, YDRT, the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water. It has helped us to gather data on bacterial levels from the major tributaries feeding into the river, focusing on E.Coli alongside standard chemistry analysis. The results will build on the data gathered over the last three years and broaden the understanding of the River Wharfe.

Estate water testing

YDRT is part of a team helping the Denton Estate to establish a baseline understanding of the health of their waters. The team of experts has come together from the University College London (UCL), the University of Liverpool and citizen scientists from Addingham Environment Group. Funded by Nidderdale AONB under their Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, there have been two rounds of water quality testing at the Estate near Ilkley. Each set has covered the length of the watercourses, from moorland to valley bottom, first in February 2023 and then repeated in August 2023. The data gathered will provide the Estate with information to help steer future land management decisions for the benefit of aquatic wildlife on the Estate and downstream on the River Wharf.