A WaterBlitz is a water sampling event that helps provide a snapshot of pollution issues across a river's catchment area.

This event is for local people and citizen scientists to take water samples of points of interest to them across the Marsh Dykes and Thamesmead catchment to identify ongoing pollution issues impacting the catchment's water quality. This event will also be an important opportunity to sample areas in the catchment that generally have relatively good water quality to understand how poorer quality stretches of our rivers could perform throughout the catchment in the absence of pollution challenges.

Volunteers who register by 19th April 2024 will be provided with an online training session on Microsoft Teams (you must attend one of the sessions):

Tuesday 23rd April 12pm to 1pm OR 7:00pm to 8:00pm

During this training session, volunteers will be able to select sites that they wish to survey, and these will be integrated onto a working map for all to access to avoid duplication of survey sites.

Please note that to help us understand the catchment as a whole, your suggested sampling site may have been taken already by another volunteer; therefore we will try to accommodate you as nearby as possible to your sampling area but we can't guarantee that your original site will be available to sample.

On the day

On the day of the WaterBlitz on 25th April 2024, volunteers will visit the closest Thames21-staffed station in the catchment to them (this will be confirmed closer to the date) and will take water sample bottles and other necessary equipment before going to their agreed sample location and taking a water sample. These samples, and all other equipment taken, will then be returned to the same Thames21 station.

What happens next?

Your water samples will then be sent to an accredited laboratory for analysis. Your results will be reported back to you by Thames21 in the form of an interactive online ArcGIS StoryMap (for example, see this one produced for a WaterBlitz event in the Brent and Lea Catchments in October 2022: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8811ce9a5a844440a928afc6c6bbac6e).

Samples from sites with poor water quality will be reported to the Surface Water Outfall Programme (SWOP) Team at Thames Water and raised with the Environment Agency and your local council.

For more information please contact Zara Visanji, zara.visanji@thames21.org.uk

This is an event designed for the community, to engage the local public with the river and not for corporates. If you are interested in a bespoke corporate volunteer day, please visit our website https://www.thames21.org.uk/get-involved-2/corporatevolunteering/