Survey work carried out by Weston Park Museum counted over 500 people attending the Wildlife of our Waterways event at the museum on the 2nd of June. The high turnout was particularly rewarding to the URSULA members running activity stalls at the event, for whom spreading awareness and educating the local community in water environmental issues, and raising the profile of URSULA was their key objectives.

Inside Weston Park Museum URSULA computer scientists Lewis Gill and Ed Morgan made use of their academic skills, running a virtual reality visualisation of the River Don in Sheffield. Visitors got the chance to play a game, navigating the virtual river bank, spotting virtual wildlife in and around the virtual river. Those looking closely could catch a flash of orange and blue as a Kingfisher shot down the Don, or glimpse a rat skulking down the side of Buddleja. Some of the wildlife such as the otters was more aspirational than reality for the centre of Sheffield of which the visualisation was based whereas others such as the ducks and grey wagtails can be reliably seen at many places along the Don. We have uploaded a video of the visualisation so there is a second chance for anyone who fancies themself as a wildlife buff to have a go at spotting our river animals.

Outside in Weston Park there was more existential wildlife to be seen as URSULA's Tom Wild and Ed Shaw and Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet's Peter Gribbon ran a stall for the newly established Don Catchment Rivers Trust displaying a wide range of creepy crawlies in trays caught from the River Sheaf. Visitors could participate in a game of identifying the different river mini-beasts including Mayfly, Stonefly and Caddisfly larvae, and using information of water quality requirements of the water invertebrates guess the water quality of the different river samples. And while this was a little too challenging for the younger participants, capturing the smaller invertebrates with pipettes turned out to be particularly popular with the smaller children.

Tens of thousands of baby eels have been stocked into Old Moor Nature Reserve as part of a catchment wide project to help this endangered species to recover.

The eels were placed in the wetlands on Friday 14 May, with a view to re-establishing a population in the Don catchment, via the River Dearne. This follows years of absence due to the joint impacts of pollution, habitat loss and physical barriers to migration.

Eels are known to be a critical part of the food chain, fed on by otter, bittern and many other key species which conservationists are trying to give a boost in the UK.

The project, led by the Don Catchment Rivers Trust, is funded by Defra, and involves work throughout South Yorkshire including this scheme on the River Dearne. The work involves physical modifications to barriers that restrict the fishes’ migration, awareness raising on the impacts of pollution and habitat loss, and work like this to kick-start the colonisation and recovery process.

Tom Wild said “the big challenge is the habitat, and to make sure the eels can pass up and down the river to get to and from the Sargasso Sea”.

Some experts estimate that globally, eel populations are down by as much as 95%, so every last piece of habitat is vital. And Old Moor Nature Reserve, run by RSPB, provides the perfect setting for a renaissance of this threatened species.

URSULA is an active participant in the work of the Don Catchment Rivers Trust and is supporting this kind of initiative by helping to better understand the impacts of urban river restoration measures and other interventions for the benefit of society, the environment and the economy.

For photos from the eel release click here.

To read about the latest URSULA research click here to see the hot off the press 2nd URSULA newsletter, and don't forget to check out more URSULA news here.

Eckart Lange, URSULA academic and Proffesor at the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield delivered a keynote presentation at the 11th Digital Landscape Architecture 2010 conference, held at Anhalt University of Applied  Sciences in Germany, entitled "3D-Visualisation for the Sustainable Development of Urban River Landscapes: Approaches in the Multidisciplinary URSULA Project."

Decided by a vote of participants of the conference, Eckart was honoured with the 'Digital Landscape Architecture 2010 Award for IT Research in Landscape Architecture'.

The refereed proceedings include the following two papers of URSULA researchers:

GILL, L., E. LANGE, E. MORGAN & D. ROMANO 2010: Interactive 3D Landscape Assessment Models. In: E. Buhmann, M. Pietsch & E.  Kretzler (eds.): Digital Landscape Architecture 2010, Wichmann, Berlin, 214-220.

MORGAN, E., L. GILL, E. LANGE & D. ROMANO 2009: Rapid Prototyping of  Urban River Corridors Using 3D Interactive, Real-time Graphics. In: E. Buhmann, M. Pietsch & E. Kretzler (eds.): Digital Landscape Architecture 2010, Wichmann, Berlin, 182-190.

Want to find out more about the wildlife in the ponds, streams and rivers in South Yorkshire? Then the Wildlife in our waterways event at Weston Park Museum is for you! With events for children and adults over the course of the day, there is something to keep everyone entertained.

From 10am til 4pm, a set of family orientated activities and exhibitions will be run, including  two run by members of the URSULA Project:

• Think you know your waterway animals and plants? Good at spotting wildlife? Well put your skills to the test and try to get the highest score you can with the Wildlife at Wicker Riverside game. In this activity for young and old, you get to explore an URSULA visualisation of Wicker in Sheffield populated by wildlife typical of rivers.  The challenge is to spot as much of this wildlife as possible, and add up your score to see if the kids are better than the parents. 100 points for a kingfisher!! 

• In case you ever wondered what bugs are living in the rivers around Sheffield, this is your chance to find out at the Creepy crawlies of rivers stand, set up by the Don Catchment Rivers Trust. See the surprising variety of minibeasts that inhabit the world of flowing water up close and personal with a microscope, and give identification a go of these alien looking critters. Younger children can colour in pictures of creepy crawlies while older children can have a go at classifying the water quality of different river samples using the creatures they find in them.

And from 7pm to 8.30pm, for those wanting to venture more deeply into natural history, several talks will be held that will discuss the wildlife in the Don Catchment in more depth:  

• Wildlife of the Living Don – John Paul Ward
• Conserving Sheffield’s Crayfish - Suzannah Dangerfield
• Fish and fishing on the Don - John Blewitt

Please book in advance by e-mailing learning@museums-sheffield.org.uk or calling 0114 2782655.

To find out the location of Weston Park Museum click here.

We hope to see you there!

The river restoration movement like all environmental movements must change and adapt as new knowledge and methods become available. URSULA researchers Ed Shaw and Tom Wild helped contribute to this process, presenting work at the 11^th annual River Restoration Conference this year in York.

Ed’s presentation ‘Where weirs were: A look at the benefits of weir removal’ (abstract) looked at how weir removal, a commonly implemented river restoration measure, affects human interests. Using the framework of river ecosystem services (the benefits that people receive from rivers), he discussed the trade-offs that must be made when deciding whether to remove weirs, noting that it is too simplistic to assume that removing man-made weirs is beneficial across the full board of all human interests, such as for canoeing or angling. Further, Ed pointed out that weirs create analogous conditions in rivers as beaver dams, debris jams and bank collapses no longer occur in many heavily modified and well maintained rivers. So even from a purely ecological perspective, while weirs are clearly detrimental barriers to many riverine spp., the role in creating natural-like river heterogeneity must also be considered.

With weir modification, as with all river restoration measures, there are multiple options that stakeholders need to weigh up and collaboratively decide what they think is the best solution. Tom’s presentation, ‘Can collaborative visualisation help deliver more sustainable urban river corridors?’ (abstract)  discussed the experiences of using 3d visualisation technology within URSULA to help stakeholders make such decisions. Potential changes to the River Don in Sheffield were represented using 3d computer based visualisation technology and presented to local stakeholders. It is often said ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, reflecting the efficiency of communicating information using imagery. Tom concluded that the iterative process of using 3d visualisation, sharing perspectives, sketching ideas, and refining responses in light of people’s varying aspirations, was a far cry from the usual practice of decide-announce-defend.  Consequently 3D visualisation technology offers a potentially valuable method in envisaging what river restoration options will look like, engaging stakeholders in an intuitive way.

To read about the latest URSULA research click here to see the hot off the press 2nd URSULA newsletter, and don't forget to check out more URSULA news here.