The first version of Catchment Life decision support software for river managers and conservationists is available via the RRC. We are looking for interested parties to test the software out on projects and provide us with feedback of the user experience. Please get in touch with rrc@therrc.co.uk for more information. See below for more information on the design and use of the tool.
Watch the video below for a demo of Catchment Life
Protecting UK River Ecosystems with Smart Decision-Making
83% of UK river water bodies are failing their ecological targets due to habitat degradation. Rivers face multiple pressures—abstraction, dredging, bank protection, weirs, and dams—that affect the habitats species need to survive. Fish require clean gravel for spawning, deep pools for resting, and vegetation for shelter.
Understanding how these pressures interact and impact wildlife has been a major, complex challenge, making it difficult to diagnose problems or predict the effects of proposed changes.
CatchmentLife bridges this gap.
Our Decision Support System provides a user-friendly interface accessible to both experts and non-experts. Developed with leading researchers and environmental data from major UK organizations, Catchment Life offers:
Whether you're a volunteer group, charity, government body, or water company, CatchmentLife helps you make informed decisions about river management.
A main component of this project was collating a range of national datasets that were relevant to river management and ecosystem health across England, Wales, and Scotland, including hydromorphology, water quality, abstraction-discharge impacts, modifications and barriers, and species populations. CatchmentLife presents these datasets on a map interface that lets the user select and view data spatially and temporally in their catchment dynamically with clear tables, charts, and photographs.
Habitat condition can rapidly be assessed with access to River Habitat Survey data that can be viewed in detail (e.g., the percentage of resectioning or floodplain land-use category) or within summary classifications for overall habitat modification, riparian quality, river habitat quality, and hydromorphological impact. Models of the four semi-natural hydromorphological indices also provide goals for improving the sediment, vegetation, flow, and geomorphic conditions within a reach. As well as habitat data, CatchmentLife makes it simple to compare the expected population levels of key species with past and the most recent measurements to see how well they are performing on their native rivers.
The data is further placed within the context of hydromorphologically consistent river reaches, which were created by applying a bespoke segmentation methodology to the Open Rivers Network (ORN) and provide a basis for catchment planning and prioritisation. A benefit of working with these reaches is that management options can be targeted in areas where the results on hydromorphology will be more consistent along the reach. Selecting a reach produces data summaries that let the user view trends in data to help in understanding the prevailing conditions along their river reaches. For each reach a River Habitat Quality class has been calculated that can be viewed in the map and illustrates the overall habitat conditions and extent of modifications of rivers at the reach scale, highlighting areas in the catchment where improvements could be considered.
With the help of leading freshwater experts, bespoke conceptual pressure-impact models were designed for each of 18 macroinvertebrate families and 23 fish species, which illustrate the habitat requirements and associated pressures. These can be referred to when viewing the data along a reach with three separate life-stages for each fish presented.
Building on the conceptual models, pressures and impacts for key fish and aquatic macroinvertebrates are calculated at the reach-scale using a statistical modelling approach that captures the complex multiple-pathway interactions between pressures, habitats, and species outlined by our expert ecologists. The result is a graphical causal model with colour-gradient schemes to allow the user to view the severity of impact and habitat suitability for a given species on their river.
Impacts scaled from low to high allow the user compare pressures and habitat conditions to tailor their decision making depending on the priorities and characteristics of their catchment; for example, on a struggling trout stream, or a river with unexpectedly low abundances of mayflies. Reference conditions modelled for a site help the user to understand the assemblages of fish and invertebrates one would expect along the river in a semi-natural condition. This can further aid in prioritising and setting realistic goals for improving biodiversity.
As a decision support tool, the user's expert opinion is placed at the heart of the interface design. Prior knowledge of the historical background of the reach, such as previous management and pollution incidents, can be integrated to help contextualise the environmental and ecological data. After a review of all the evidence, the User Assessment platform provides a place to record key findings from the data and models, analysed within the tool, alongside user knowledge of the reach, to help decide management recommendations and an overall assessment of pressures and impacts. Each assessment is saved to the reach, allowing the user to easily switch between different projects or compare pressures and impacts across different reaches within the same waterbody.
See how CatchmentLife works in our video demonstration.
Get in touch for more info and to test the tool at rrc@therrc.co.uk