Engagement

Learning about freshwater ecosystems through Modular River Survey (MoRPh)

The Modular River Survey, or MoRPh Rivers, was developed through work led by Queen Mary to enable citizen scientists and river groups to assess the physical condition of their local rivers and streams. The survey records features including sediment, vegetation, river-channel form, physical habitat and human pressures, helping participants understand how river environments respond to management and restoration. 

After training, volunteer surveyors can collect scientifically structured observations from their own local waterways and contribute them to a wider evidence base used to understand river condition. By 2024, more than 500 surveyors had been trained and more than 5,000 surveys completed across the UK and Ireland. 

MoRPh therefore combines community education with practical freshwater monitoring, giving participants the skills to recognise habitat condition, human pressures and the effects of restoration and management on river ecosystems. 

Learning from the River Chess 

Queen Mary’s ChessWatch project provides free educational resources that help schools, local communities and other learners understand the River Chess, a chalk stream in the Chilterns, and the pressures affecting its health. The project combines environmental monitoring with public education on water quality, water quantity and sustainable river management. 

Its educational resources introduce learners to chalk-stream ecology, groundwater, river flow, water abstraction, urbanisation, pollution and catchment management. Enquiry-based activities encourage students to investigate the challenges of managing water resources, assess threats to water quality and consider how a more sustainable future for the River Chess can be created. 

Four monitoring stations collect data on indicators including dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, electrical conductivity and water level. These data are available for A-level projects, STEM clubs and other educational activities, allowing learners to work with real environmental evidence while exploring how human activity affects freshwater ecosystems. 

BlueGreenE17

Through BlueGreenE17 – Paving the Way for a Wilder Walthamstow, Queen Mary works with residents and local organisations to explore how urban green and blue spaces can be understood, connected and improved. 

Blue spaces include rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands, while green spaces range from parks and woodlands to gardens, street trees and grass verges. The project invites local residents to contribute their knowledge and experiences through participatory mapping, surveys, workshops and public engagement, helping communities explore how waterways and other habitats support biodiversity and urban resilience. 

Queen Mary has worked with more than 20 organisations and community groups through the project, including Waltham Forest Council, London Wildlife Trust, Thames21, Thames Water and Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. This collaborative approach connects community knowledge with research on freshwater and urban ecosystems, helping participants understand the role of water bodies, wetlands and connected habitats in creating a more resilient urban environment. 

Engaging tourists in sea-turtle conservation

Queen Mary works with tourists, conservation organisations and tourism operators in Zakynthos, Greece, to promote more responsible wildlife tourism and reduce pressures on the island’s loggerhead sea turtles. 

Through the Zakynthos Turtles project, visitors can submit photographs of turtles they encounter and receive personalised information about the individual animal, including its behaviour, life history and the level of tourism pressure it experiences. This turns a wildlife-viewing encounter into an opportunity to learn about the effects of tourism on marine species and the importance of turtle-friendly behaviour. 

During the 2024 summer season, visitors submitted 590 turtle photographs, more than 260% above the project's first year. These submissions enabled researchers to identify 268 individual turtles and return information about them directly to the people who had observed them. 

Queen Mary also worked directly with tourism operators in 2024, providing leaflets, posters and interactive materials for use during turtle-watching trips. The project helps operators integrate conservation education into their tourism offer and encourages visitors to understand how repeated observation, boat traffic and inappropriate viewing practices can affect individual turtles. 

Around 30 volunteers from ARCHELON, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, also took part in a Queen Mary workshop. These volunteers subsequently support public education through hotel and boat presentations and information kiosks across the island, extending the project's conservation messages to a wider tourist audience. 

Engaging the public in sea-turtle conservation

Supported through a 2024 Queen Mary Centre for Public Engagement Large Grant, TurtleTurtle turns sea-turtle research into an interactive public engagement activity. Participants learn how to identify individual turtles using the unique scale patterns on their faces while exploring turtle biology, behaviour, injuries and conservation. 

Queen Mary also co-organised a half-day international workshop on sea-turtle citizen science in 2024, bringing together major projects working at the intersection of marine research, conservation and public engagement. Seven presentations shared approaches to photo-identification, citizen science and conservation impact. 

During the 2024 summer season in Zakynthos, Queen Mary researchers also worked with tourism operators and conservation volunteers to support public education on responsible turtle watching and the pressures that tourism and boat activity can place on marine wildlife. 

Caring for the Regent’s Canal through community action

Queen Mary and Queen Mary Students’ Union work with the Canal & River Trust to organise Big Green Canal Cleans along the Regent’s Canal beside the Mile End campus. 

These practical events bring students and staff together to remove litter and other waste from the canalside environment, helping protect aquatic habitats and raise awareness of pollution in urban waterways. Selected Big Green Canal Clean events have also been open to members of the local community, extending participation beyond the University. 

Queen Mary typically runs two to three canal cleans each year. In 2025, Queen Mary held its largest canal clean to date, with more than 50 students and staff taking part. The University typically runs two to three Big Green Canal Cleans each year, supporting the health of a shared freshwater ecosystem for wildlife and the wider community. 

Working together to maintain shared waterways

Queen Mary works with communities and environmental organisations to help maintain shared aquatic ecosystems. 

At Mile End, Queen Mary and Queen Mary Students’ Union work with the Canal & River Trust on regular Big Green Canal Cleans along the Regent’s Canal. These activities bring together University participants, environmental partners and, for selected events, members of the local community to care for a shared urban waterway. 

Queen Mary freshwater researchers also work with organisations including the Environment Agency, Thames21 and Rivers Trusts on river restoration, habitat assessment and freshwater management, combining research expertise with organisations directly involved in caring for aquatic ecosystems. 

Supporting management of the River Chess

Through ChessWatch, Queen Mary works with the River Chess Association, Chilterns Chalk Streams Project and Thames Water as part of the wider management of the River Chess catchment. Four monitoring stations continuously collect information on river conditions and water quality, helping partners understand pressures including low flows, abstraction, nutrient enrichment and urban runoff, and assess whether actions across the catchment are improving river health. 

This shared evidence supports collaboration between researchers, local organisations and water-management partners working to protect and improve the River Chess. 

Supporting fairer global fisheries

Queen Mary makes research on the economic and policy drivers of overfishing accessible to policymakers, environmental organisations and other stakeholders involved in fisheries governance. In January 2024, Professor Liam Campling published Towards fairer global marine fisheries, a public research briefing examining how distant-water fishing fleets gain access to the marine resources of coastal states and the challenges these countries face in managing those relationships. The briefing is designed for policymakers in developing coastal states and environmental and development organisations, helping them understand how fisheries-access arrangements shape the use and governance of marine resources. 

Professor Campling’s wider fisheries work also examines fisheries subsidies and their relationship with overfishing. Queen Mary research has contributed to international discussions on prohibiting subsidies that can encourage continued fishing where stocks are already overfished, including informing the positions of Pacific Island states in World Trade Organisation negotiations. By translating research on distant-water fishing, subsidies and fisheries governance into accessible policy resources, Queen Mary supports wider understanding of the structural factors that contribute to overfishing and the policy options available to manage marine resources more sustainably.