Catchment Protection

Practical solutions for protecting, understanding and improving our water environment

Protecting rivers, lakes and groundwater often depends on local action. Flux Enviro is committed to supporting community organisations, charities, rivers trusts, environmental groups, individuals, landowners, researchers, regulators and public bodies working to understand and improve the water environment across the UK and Ireland.

Projects can range from a community group carrying out its first water-quality survey to a regulator or catchment partnership establishing a long-term monitoring programme. Whatever the scale, we aim to provide practical advice, appropriate equipment and solutions proportionate to the objectives and available budget.

Our capabilities bring together water sampling, water quality, hydrology and groundwater monitoring with practical catchment protection measures such as solar-powered livestock watering. Equipment ranges from simple field instruments for community and educational projects through to continuous river, groundwater and water-quality monitoring systems.

Importantly, you do not need to know exactly what equipment you need before contacting us. We can help establish what needs to be measured, where measurements should be taken and what level of instrumentation is appropriate before recommending equipment.

Our Solutions Illustrated

Community, Charity & Citizen Science Projects

We recognise that community organisations, charities and voluntary groups often operate with limited budgets, volunteer resources and varying levels of technical experience.

Our role can therefore extend beyond simply supplying equipment. We can help organisations understand the available measurement methods, select appropriate instrumentation and develop a practical monitoring approach around the objectives of the project.

Equipment can support:

Community water-quality monitoring
Rivers trusts and environmental groups
Charities and voluntary organisations
Citizen-science programmes
Schools, colleges and universities
Public engagement projects
Catchment restoration initiatives
Baseline surveys and local investigations

Where appropriate, we prioritise equipment that is robust, straightforward to operate and capable of producing meaningful environmental data without unnecessary cost or complexity.

Support can include equipment selection, technical advice, training and assistance with developing practical monitoring arrangements.

Water Quality Monitoring

Water-quality measurements can help establish baseline conditions, identify potential pressures and assess changes following catchment improvements.

Equipment is available for:

Water sampling
Handheld water-quality measurement
pH and conductivity
Dissolved oxygen
Turbidity
Temperature
Nutrients and selected water-quality parameters
Multiparameter measurement
Continuous water-quality monitoring

For community and educational projects, simple field instruments can provide an accessible introduction to collecting useful environmental data.

Where greater resolution is required, monitoring can progress to multiparameter instrumentation, continuous logging and remote data access.

Rivers, Flow & Catchment Hydrology

Understanding rainfall, river level and flow provides important context when interpreting water quality and wider catchment behaviour.

Monitoring can include:

Systems can range from an individual water-level logger or rain gauge through to coordinated monitoring across multiple locations.

More detailed instrumentation is available through our Hydrology and Hydrogeology Monitoring Solutions.

Livestock Watering & Catchment Protection

Protecting a watercourse does not always involve monitoring. Practical interventions can directly reduce pressures on the catchment.

Preventing livestock from entering rivers and streams can help reduce bank erosion, sediment input and direct contamination, but animals still require a reliable source of drinking water.

Flux Enviro supplies LORENTZ S1 solar-powered pumping systems for livestock watering and small-scale irrigation, providing a practical solution for locations where mains electricity is unavailable.

Systems can:

Pump from suitable rivers, streams, ponds and wells
Supply livestock drinking troughs
Transfer water to header tanks
Support small-scale irrigation
Operate without mains electricity
Use solar power with minimal operating costs

The compact LORENTZ S1 systems = is particularly suited to smaller livestock watering applications and can provide an alternative water supply where fencing or riparian buffer zones prevent direct livestock access to watercourses.

Depending on the project and current funding programme, grant assistance may be available for eligible environmental or agricultural measures.

Monitoring Catchment Improvements

Monitoring can help demonstrate whether practical interventions are producing measurable improvements and provide evidence to guide future work.

Projects may investigate the effects of:

Riparian fencing and livestock exclusion
Alternative livestock watering
Buffer strips
Wetland and habitat creation
Runoff management
River restoration
Nutrient reduction measures
Changes in water quality over time

Monitoring does not necessarily need to be complex. A small number of well-selected parameters measured at appropriate locations can often provide more useful information than an unnecessarily complicated monitoring network.

Manual sampling and field measurements can also be combined with continuous monitoring where a project requires greater understanding of changes over time.

Supporting Regulators, Partnerships & Larger Programmes

Flux Enviro support regulators, local authorities, catchment partnerships, environmental organisations and research bodies developing practicable and cost effective larger or longer-term monitoring programmes.

Instrumentation can be integrated across multiple sites to monitor water quality, river level, flow, rainfall, groundwater and other environmental parameters, with options for local data logging or remote access.

Our involvement can range from supplying individual instruments through to system design, equipment supply, installation, commissioning, training, telemetry and ongoing servicing.

Practical Support at Every Scale

Catchment projects vary considerably in their objectives, available funding and technical requirements. A community group investigating a local stream may need a very different approach from a regulator establishing a long-term catchment monitoring network.

Flux Enviro is happy to assist at either scale.

We can help identify what needs to be sampled or measured, where measurements should be taken, the level of accuracy required and the most appropriate equipment for the available budget.

Our involvement can be as simple as answering a technical question or helping select a field instrument, through to providing training, equipment rental or developing a complete monitoring programme. We're here to help!