Inspired by training held in Santa Lucía in August and some very successfull forest school events on aquatic macroinvertebrates we will run a pilot study on the evaluation of water quality based on aquatic invertebrates next week.
The plan is to compare various streams within the Santa Lucía reserve with rivers and creeks near-by. Within Santa Lucía we don't expect much pollution by it will interesting to see how this compares with rivers and small streams around the reserve that are affected one way or the other by different types of land use (agriculture, roads, chemical industry, ...).
Next week (and another week in November) we will look into the feasibility of the study at different locations of the region in order to make a good selection of maybe 4 - 6 different study sites which we will then visit 3 - 4 times per year and evaluate based on the presence of indicator organism groups.
If things work well (i.e. the way we dream them) we will generate an overview on the health of the different rivers and streams of the region and will also find points as to the possible causes of contamitation and its degree.
This could also be a great opportunity for volunteers who want to work in our research projects and more forest school events.
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