Catchment Systems
Thinking Cooperative
Making sure that people count, at the heart of rivers’ recovery
CaSTCo (Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative) is co-creating pathways for collaborative monitoring and community data to make a bigger impact on our rivers’ future
Through innovative prototyping and collaboration, we are working together to test and build a national framework to support communities and citizen scientists, decision-makers, scientists, and industry to collect and combine data from community monitoring along with other datasets to deliver improvements to the water environment.
Projects powered by CaSTCo bring together expertise and buy-in from more than 30 organisations nationwide, including community and local partnerships, water companies, environmental charities, regulators, technical experts, academics, and the private sector.
Our framework
Audits tools and methods
so that we can set expectations and
trust data quality
Builds pathways for data sharing
so that data can be better integrated into decision-making
Provides resources to communities
so they can understand best practices and participate meaningfully
This project is funded by Ofwat’s Innovation Fund and led by The Rivers Trust and United Utilities.
Nine demonstration areas are testing hypotheses to ensure the framework is applicable in practice:
Agriculture, diffuse water quality
Agriculture, water quality and soil health
Chalk stream health
Water quality
Northwest (Upper Mersey, Ribble, Lune)
Bathing water quality
Surface water runoff and sewage pollution
Sewage outfall pollution
Thames (Salmon, Dollis Brooks)
Multiple pollution sources
Agriculture and diffuse water pollution
Key resources will be published here in Autumn 2024.
Questions? Email castco@theriverstrust.org