Fish passes can reconnect species with habitats blocked by dams – here’s how they work

New article in The Conversation about fish passes by Stephanie Januchowski-Hartley, Swansea University and Virgilio Hermoso, Universidad de Sevilla Over one million dams and culverts (tunnels that encircle rivers passing under roads) block the movements of fish and other wildlife in Europe. Scientists estimate that less than 1% of catchments in the UK are free […]

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Understanding Differences Between Lakes and Reservoirs

Understanding Differences Between Lakes and Reservoirs Penny Beames and I published an article today in the journal Frontiers for Young Minds where we present differences between lakes and reservoirs, and why it matters for people and nature. Our article was reviewed by students (ages 14-17) at Peru iGEM Team. The full article is shared below […]

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Expanding global instream infrastructure inventories through participatory science

Guest post by Aaron Whittemore Hi everyone! I am Aaron. I am a collaborator with FIRE Lab and am currently working as a science communications specialist after receiving my Master’s at Virginia Tech in the US. Today, I’m sharing newly published research that I led with a team of people from around the world to […]

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Culverts – the major threat to fish you’ve probably never heard of

You probably cross rivers every day without realising it. Beneath the concrete underfoot are culverts – tunnels installed under roads and railways that allow rivers to pass from one side to the other. Like bridges, culverts allow people to cross rivers, but unlike bridges, culverts often don’t allow the fishes living in those rivers to […]

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Exploring your local river on Google Earth

We can learn about and visit our local rivers, but sometimes we might like to learn different things and see more of the river than we can do by visiting it locally. How can we do that?  One way is to use tools like Google Earth that project satellite imagery onto our computer screens, allowing […]

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Addressing challenges at road-river crossings

Last week, FIRE Lab hosted a one-day workshop with collaborators Maria Pregnolato (Bristol Uni), and Carlos Cabo and Pipo Roces (Swansea Uni). The focus of the workshop was on bridges, particularly those occur where roads cross over rivers (what we refer to as road-river crossings). At the workshop, we shared ideas about methods and strategies […]

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