XClose

UCL Engineering Exchange

Home
Menu

Wash monitoring in the Thames

Thames riverboat communities are working with the EngEx to monitor wash during major sewerage infrastructure works

An image of two canal house boats moored in a canal

18 September 2018

The problem

The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a major infrastructure project planned for improving London’s sewerage system. The existing sewerage system is no longer suitable for London’s growing population. However, some boating communities situated in the Thames were concerned about Tideway’s potential impacts affecting the community’s living conditions and the river’s ecology. 

While Tideway’s mandate includes working with local communities to minimise negative impacts and to improve the ecological health of the river, their data is not accessible to the public. Thus, there is a desire in the community to measure baseline indicators in advance of the tunnel’s building works. The community hopes this will ensure any damage to the waterway is minimal and in line with Tideway’s commitments.

Specific community concerns, both related to the construction project and to the wider health of the Thames, include effluence/WaSH, noise pollution, air pollution, increased wave action and biodiversity.

Our solution

In 2016, the EngEx was approached by Agamemnon Otero, a member of the Thames boating community and an EngEx partner through his work with Repowering London, for support in monitoring changes to the river resulting from the project. The EngEx introduced Mr Otero to Dr Helen Czerski, a specialist in ocean bubbles and air-sea gas transfer in UCL’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, who recruited an MSc student to work on the project. Stephen Peter Rowe, from the programme ‘Engineering with Innovation and Entrepreneurship’, undertook the initial research as his thesis project. 

In collaboration with Mr Otero and other and members of the riverboat community, the first stage of the project aimed to outline a community-based data gathering and environmental monitoring programme to be implemented by residents of river boat communities. Citizen science principles shaped the programme’s approach.

The initial stage of the project aimed to:

  • Establish the purpose of environmental monitoring
  • Define parameters to monitor
  • Identify appropriate methods for community monitoring
  • Identify equipment and other resource requirements
  • Outline methods for reporting and analysing the data, including communication protocols with Tideway
  • Implement a strategy for data collection, monitoring and dissemination.

In the summer of 2018, the project received funding from the EPSRC Knowledge Exchange and Innovation Fund to continue the project, with the aim of creating a sustainable set of 10 monitoring stations in the Thames Estuary which can be used by the wider scientific community working on water monitoring of any type.

The aims of the second project stage include amassing data which will be openly available online as a public data set, with students and citizens encouraged to use and view it. UCL researchers, with support from the EngEx, will build the framework, manage the partnerships and run the wave monitoring.

Read the thesis