The project in Rother has been set up through funding with a Making It Happen grant from Rother Voluntary Action. Strandliners will be working with community groups to undertake simple surveys in their local area. This will include water quality monitoring as well as wildlife surveys. All training in water analysis provided. The data collected will build a picture of river health across the Rother catchment.
We will be producing a monthly Community River Watch newsletter with the latest results and the upcoming dates. If you are interested in receiving this, please email.
Upcoming events – more dates to follow
No registration necessary – just come along and join in.
Bring binoculars if you have them.
What will we be looking for?
We will have our own survey forms, but will also be using ID leaflets from the Field Studies Council, and some phone apps. These will include Merlin, for bird song; iRecord, for biodiversity identification and recording; Pl@ntNet, for plant identification; and the Big River Watch from The Rivers Trust. Please note, there is no requisite to purchase or download anything. The apps are all free, but this is for information only.
This will be a short project from August to November, but our aim is to continue into next year with more extensive training to enable groups to continue monitoring the same areas on a regular basis, promoting an awareness of seasonal changes and knowing what is ‘normal’ so an alert can be raised if there is an unexpected change.
The Rother Catchment
The Rother catchment drains almost 1,000 square km of land in East Sussex and Kent, the largest and longest river being the River Rother. The catchment has a unique collection of river systems and man-made canals and includes the network of ditches, streams and sewers of the Romney Marsh and the 28 mile Royal Military Canal.
The Rother rises near Rotherfield in Wealden district of East Sussex and flows for 35 miles through East Sussex and Kent to its mouth on Rye Bay on the English Channel. Along its course, it is joined by the Rivers Limden and Dudwell at Etchingham, the River Darwell to the north of Robertsbridge, and the Brede and Tillingham Rivers which join it at Rye before it discharges to the sea. For the final 14 miles the river bed is below the high tide level, and the Scots Float sluice is used to control water levels. The sluice prevents salt water entering the river system at high tides, and retains water in the river during the summer months to ensure the health of the surrounding marsh habitat. Below the sluice, the river is tidal for 3.7 miles. It is navigable from Bodiam to Rye
Harbour.
Romney Marsh, including Dungeness, is the largest coastal wetland habitat and is one of the most important wildlife sites in the world – protected at a Global, European and UK levels. The area is home to species found hardly anywhere else in the UK and it is also a crossroads for migrating birds. The Marsh has no boundaries but it incorporates one of the largest wild and stable vegetated shingle landscapes in the world supporting a rich and diverse wildlife and a wide and unique variety of uncommon plants, insects and spiders. It is designated a National Nature Reserve (NNR), Special Protection Area (SPA) and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC). Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye are also designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
