About this organization
The AQuA project is a large, community driven effort to help protect and improve the rivers and lakes of Yorkshire. At its heart, AQuA brings together local people and scientists to better understand what is polluting waterways and how to tackle these problems. Many of Yorkshire’s rivers and lakes contain a mix of chemicals and microbes from human activities, and traditional monitoring has not kept pace with the growing concern about water quality. AQuA was created to fill this gap by involving citizen scientists in gathering regular, reliable information about their local environment.
The project develops new, easy to use testing kits that allow citizen scientists to check for pollutants not usually measured by community groups, such as pharmaceuticals and harmful bacteria. These tools allow people to collect trustworthy data that complements university-led testing and helps identify problems more quickly. AQuA works across nine water bodies in Yorkshire and aims to build a consistent toolkit so that results can be compared and used confidently by environmental organisations, policymakers, and researchers.
AQuA is funded by NERC (2024-2028), and led by experienced experts at the University of York, with support from a wide range of partners including the Stockholm Environment Institute, University of Leeds, Rivers Trust, Environment Agency, community groups, regional UK councils, and regional businesses – for the full list, see https://aqua.york.ac.uk/about-aqua. The project team includes environmental scientists who specialise in pollution, local water quality monitoring groups, public engagement professionals who work closely with volunteers, and specialists in citizen science methods. Early validation work has shown that results collected using AQuA’s citizen science methods can match those of laboratory based testing, giving confidence that community generated data can meaningfully contribute to improving local waterways.
