'Flow' of information needed for annual river survey

The Big River Watch Survey takes place from today until Thursday, 1 May

The Rivers Trust is urging people from all over the island of Ireland to take part in its annual river survey.

The trust is asking people to observe a local river, lough or stream and record their findings on its free app.

The app will prompt the user to answer questions about what they can see and observe. No special knowledge is required.

Speaking to RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Joanna Braniff, all-Ireland advocacy and communications manager of The Rivers Trust, said that the survey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete.

"There are loads of data gaps in river and waterbody knowledge throughout Ireland," Ms Braniff said.

"We want to get a broader picture of our rivers," she added.

Unlike in Britain, where there is live monitoring on many freshwater bodies, this is not the case in Ireland.

The biodiversity crisis, as well as increased blue-green algae blooms and pollution incidents, means that the need for data on freshwater bodies is increasing, Ms Braniff said.

"There is a gap in the story right now and we're asking the public to step up," Ms Braniff said.

People can complete as many surveys as they like in the app in as many places along the same freshwater body or a different body.

"You never step in the same river twice," Ms Braniff said.

"A small pollution incident could only be visible for 15 minutes, so there is no upper limit on how many times even the one area could be surveyed."

This is the third year the Big River Watch Survey is running in Ireland.

The Rivers Trust is hoping for 250 data points to come from Ireland in this year's survey.

Last year, there were around 200 from the island of Ireland and around 3,000 from Britain.

The Big River Watch app can be downloaded on both Android and iOS.

The app itself is always live so people can submit data to it year-round and all the data gathered from the survey is publicly available for anyone to use.

To view the data already gathered, visit theriverstrust.org.