River Habitat Survey

August -
September 2024

Online Learning Platform & fieldwork in Preston TBC

Looking for an RHS Refresher course? Email us rrc@therrc.co.uk for more information!

There are some discounted places available for Trusts and volunteers from small organisations/charities. If you are interested in applying for a discounted place, please complete the form, as well as the course booking form above:
Discount request form

If booking within 4 weeks of the date the course starts, we expect you to make payment using card or bank transfer, before the start of the course.

The River Habitat Survey (RHS) is a standard methodology for recording hydromorphological features of importance to wildlife. The EU-Water Framework Directive (WFD) compliant methodology is designed to provide surveyors and organisations with a way of consistently recording habitat and geomorphological features such as riffles, pools, erosion, deposition, woody debris, fine sediment, as well as pressures (engineering, land use) and management. Altogether, there are more than 200 features recorded in a single 500m survey.

The RHS can be carried out by non-experts in about one hour along a 500m reach. A free database is available for inputting data and calculating indices. The RHS has been applied since 1994 in the UK and abroad. It has been adopted as a standard methodology for the WFD in Spain, Portugal, Poland and other European countries. It has been applied towards the WFD, monitoring, river restoration, site and catchment assessment, diffuse pollution risk assessment etc.

The River Restoration Centre (RRC) offers a 4-day Certification course in RHS where surveyors will be introduced to the basics of hydromorphology through a combination of fieldwork and presentations. The certification will be delivered following a written and field test that will be valid for 3 years, at which point, surveyors will be asked to attend a short refresher course. The Certification uses the same material and adopts the same standards as the Environment Agency (EA) accreditation scheme. Please note that the EA does not endorse external organisations or scheme and, therefore, the RHS Certification is not valid for carrying out surveys for the EA.

The training course will feature presentations and discussions on recent and past applications towards hydromorphological and WFD assessments, river restoration planning and monitoring, habitat assessment and any other subject of interest to participants. The RHS software for data input and analysis will be demonstrated using existing applications and case studies.

There is no pre-requisite or prior knowledge or competency required for attending the certification course. Participants are asked to read and learn definitions in the RHS Manual before attending the course. The course will involve a lot of fieldwork that will be performed in pairs to practice aspects of the survey. Participants will visit a wide range of river types so that they can familiarise themselves with a diversity of river morphology and features.

For more information on RHS, visit the RHS website

For more information on the RHS Application and recording surveys electronically, read the short blog and download the App

How to use the RHS App guidelines

How to use the cRHS App guidelines

What did past participants think? Check out this blog

We have also developed a citizen RHS version which encourages local volunteers to record features and pressures on their local waterways using the RHS method. Find out more about how to be trained as a cRHS surveyor.

RRC Members: £670

Non-members: £875

Student Member: £565

Student Non-Member: £736

  February-March 2024

  June-July 2023

  March 2023

  March-April 2022

  September 2021

  August 2021

  October 2019

Refresher course information

Blog

  March 2019

Cardiff, Wales