Through our Wye Adapt to Climate Change project, a partnership with Radnorshire Wildlife Trust and Wye Valley National Landscape, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund we have supported lots of groups across Herefordshire to start monitoring for riverflies.
This is a regular survey programme run through @riverflypartnership which requires professional training and incredibly dedicated volunteers! Surveys begin with taking kick sample from a specific place in the stream before the contents is examined and all the species found are identified. This data is then logged on a national database.
Here's what's happening in Herefordshire...
đź’§Herefordshire West Wye Riverfly Group
The group completed an initial training day in 2025 and began surveying in April 2026. A second training session took place in May 2026, welcoming additional volunteers and bringing the total to 17 RMI monitors. The group is now surveying five sites across western Herefordshire: Kinnersley Brook, Millhalf Brook, Letton Lake, Hardwicke Brook, and Dulas Brook.
đź’§ Wellington Brook Group
The group continues to monitor three sites on a monthly basis, achieving peak RMI scores of 14. Discussions are underway to register an additional monitoring site upstream of Wellington village.
đź’§ Hereford Yazor Brook Group
Monitoring locations have been reduced from 12 to seven to enable more frequent surveys by the smaller volunteer team. In 2025, an eighth site was established at Mansel Lacy to compare riverfly populations in the upper catchment with those in Hereford. Results at Mansel Lacy are more promising, but the group hopes that ongoing work will lead to improvements in the urban sections of the Yazor Brook.
đź’§ Newton Brook Group (Hereford)
A new monitoring site has been registered where the Western Branch meets Newton Brook, with surveying set to begin imminently. Plans are also in place to add two further sites — one upstream on Newton Brook and another upstream on the Western Branch. The group is also undertaking monitoring through the Urban Riverfly scheme.
Encouragingly, no trigger level breaches have been recorded at any monitoring sites.
You can view all the data through the Riverfly Partnership’s data dashboard - riverflydata.org
