Logging a water quality report

Open the Water Quality tool from the Hub, describe what you can see — weather, clarity, flow, colour, odour, bank condition — add a photo and location, submit. Takes about two minutes.

Water quality data from UK regulators is overwhelmingly chemical and expensive — phosphate, dissolved oxygen, ammonia measured in laboratories weeks after the sample. What's missing is what any observant person can see with their eyes: water that's gone the wrong colour, flow that's unusual for the weather, a bank that's been eroded, a smell that suggests sewage or agricultural pollution.

Those are often the first signals that something's wrong. If enough people log them, the pattern becomes evidence that feeds into catchment decisions.

1. Open Water Quality — the blue card on the Hub.

1. Weather now. Pick the current weather — sunny, cloudy, drizzle, heavy rain, etc. Relevant because rain affects runoff and flow.

1. Rainfall in last 24 hours. None / light / moderate / heavy. Again, context for everything else.

1. Bank or shoreline condition. Stable, eroding, overhanging, recently cut, damaged, etc.

1. Water clarity. Clear / slightly turbid / turbid / very turbid / no visibility. Drop something light-coloured in if you're not sure — if you can see it at 20cm you're clear, at 5cm you're turbid.

1. Water level. Low / normal / high / flood. Relative to what's normal for that water at that time of year.

1. Flow rate (moving water only). Slow / moderate / fast / very fast / unusual. Skip for still waters.

1. Water colour. Options include clear, greenish, brownish, grey, black, red/orange, oily sheen, and several others. Pick the best match.

1. Odour. Options include no smell, earthy, musty, sewage, chemical, agricultural, rotten egg (sulphide), and fuel. If it smells wrong, it probably is.

1. Water temperature (if known). Optional. Only fill this in if you have an actual measurement — don't guess.

1. Severity assessment. Your read on how serious what you're seeing is. Normal / mild concern / moderate / severe / critical.

1. Photo evidence. Recommended (not mandatory, but strongly encouraged). A clear photo of the water, the bank, or the specific issue helps verify the report.

1. Additional notes. Anything worth saying that doesn't fit the fields above. Dead fish, surface foam, unusual wildlife behaviour, visible pollution source.

1. Location — postcode + what3words, same as every Hydroscape form.

1. Submit.

• Whenever you notice something unusual (colour change, smell, unusual flow)
• After a significant weather event (heavy rain, drought conditions)
• Routinely, if you're a regular at a particular water — a baseline "normal conditions" record is as valuable as an alarm
• When you see pollution incidents — but also report to the Environment Agency on 0800 80 70 60 if it's serious. We're a supplementary record, not an emergency service.

• Joins the Live Data Map as a blue pin
• Aggregates into catchment-level patterns over time
• Is available to Rivers Trusts, catchment partnerships, Wildlife Trusts, and the Environment Agency with your permission (anonymised at individual level)
• Feeds your MyHydroscape dashboard and earns the First Water Quality badge

• Submitting a biodiversity sighting
• The Live Data Map
• Who sees my data?