More than 6,000 people will take part in the Great UK WaterBlitz this weekend!
This weekend, more than 6,000 people across the UK are heading out to their local rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and canals as part of Earthwatch Europe’s Great UK WaterBlitz. It will be a huge national effort to understand the health of our freshwater.
Armed with simple water quality kits, participants are testing freshwater samples and generating thousands of scientific datapoints about the waterways on their doorstep. This is citizen science in action; people are actively helping to gather the evidence we need to understand what is happening in our freshwater.
One water sample gives us a snapshot of one place, at one moment in time. But when thousands of samples are brought together, they can help us see the bigger picture, revealing patterns in water quality, helping identify where problems may be occurring, and showing where action may be needed.
It is also a great chance for families and community groups to get together and connect with nature. By taking part, people are spending time beside their local waterways, looking more closely at what is happening in them and building a deeper connection with the freshwater that runs through their communities.
Taking a closer look…
Freshwater can look clean while still being under pressure. Nutrient pollution, including pollution from sewage, agricultural run-off and urban areas, is a major pressure on rivers, streams, lakes and ponds.
The scale of the challenge was highlighted by the Spring 2026 WaterBlitz, when 57% of datapoints collected across the UK showed poor water quality, with unacceptable levels of nutrient pollution. That is why collecting more data matters. The more we know about our waterways, the better we can understand where the problems are, how conditions vary from place to place, and where further investigation or action may be needed.
Searching for forever chemicals
One of the particularly interesting elements of this year’s WaterBlitz is the addition of PFAS, often referred to as ‘forever chemicals.’ A number of WaterBlitz samples will undergo specialist laboratory analysis for PFAS. We genuinely don’t know what those results will show – and that’s what makes this scientifically interesting.
By combining the power of thousands of people collecting data from their local waterways with specialist scientific analysis, this year’s WaterBlitz will help us explore another part of the story of freshwater health. The results are expected back in mid-October, with the full Great UK WaterBlitz report due in early November.
Best of luck to the thousands taking part this weekend. And an enormous THANK YOU!!
