Riverfly Monitoring is our flagship citizen science project. Our volunteer monitors sample river bugs at agreed locations around the River Aire catchment to assess the effects of pollution on life in the river.
Riverfly populations are one of the key indicators of long-term river health problems, as the insects living in the river fall quickly if pollution is present and take a long time to recover after a pollution event.
In 2025, with the support of LNER who are funding the project, we set out to recruit new volunteer Riverfly Monitors to monitor rivers and becks in North Leeds. Read on to find out more about the project .
The project looks to assess the river bug life along the following streams in North Leeds:
Our volunteers are trained to a standard agreed by The Riverfly Partnership, thus ensuring consistency and accuracy, and received a Certificate of Competence demonstrating their achievement.
Have a read of our guide to becoming a Riverfly Monitor with the Aire Rivers Trust.
The video to the right provides a mid project update of our work with LNER and our partner organisations .
You can view the interim results via the Riverfly Partnership’s Data Hub here https://riverflydata.org/ We hope to report the results of this project in March 2026 so check back in then, to see our findings.
