Our communities care deeply about their local rivers. How do we help them help us protect and restore them?

Water Rangers’ role in CaSTCo is to help disrupt the status quo with innovative tools and approaches. Our experience creating tools for communities in Canada became an exciting starting point for this work!

What does innovation in community science look like? For us, it means working collaboratively with experts and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible quickly (all the while thinking about efficiency and sustainability).  We’ve been lucky enough to work with the smartest and most passionate river champions through this program. This page explores some of the highlights of the past two years’ efforts.

Approach

Learning from the best

Approaching everything with curiosity, we're learning from the many expert partners and integrating their experience to propel the movement forward! Whenever we can, we aim to help others on their journey, too.

Prototyping tools

We're testing physical testing devices plus tools/approaches for organizing, aiming to 'try something and see what works' before we commit too many resources to a single solution.

Iterating and evolving

Our goal is to quickly respond to communities and partner expertise to build momentum behind the movement. This includes a focus on communicating what we've learned to benefit everyone in the collective and beyond!

So far...

16

Prototypes created and tested, including data systems, testkits, hyper-local hubs, fundraising, and blitzes

21

UK groups using our free, open data platform 12 of which are using our testkits

15,000+

UK-based datapoints added to our platform at 521 sample locations