Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Think back to August and the fish kill on the Blackwater. We still don't know what it was that somebody or some business put into the river. But we heard from lots of scientists at the time that one of the things that made matters worse was the temperature of the water in the Blackwater.
Chapter 2: What was the impact of the fish kill on the Blackwater River?
The hotter the river gets, the less oxygen that it can hold for fish. And the Blackwater reached 19 degrees Celsius that week. There is an adaptation, though. The theme of this morning's programme, trees. Trees on riverbanks provide shade and help keep temperatures down. Two years ago, we met members of the Boyne Rivers Trust.
They wanted to start a programme of planting because their river can get as hot as 22 degrees Celsius. I met them again this week. What are you looking for now?
Trying to see if we find any positive indicator species. We've been looking for the likes of caddisfly.
Zoologist Sarah Austin is turning over rocks in a stream running through a suckler beef farm in Meath looking for good news.
Janey, I think this is all done. Wow.
She finds it almost straight away.
Look at them all. That's them all. Wow. That's amazing now.
You wouldn't see that, would you, in a nutrient-filled river?
You absolutely wouldn't. If there was a lot of nutrients getting in, you might be seeing a lot of algae growing, for example. And it's lovely to see all the pebbles down the bottom. It's not full of silt.
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Chapter 3: How do trees help in maintaining river temperatures?
It is. It's great to know that it is what it is. It's what you grew up with as a child, really, isn't it? Kind of those streams that are little tadpoles and frogs and little fish. It's lovely to see it like that, just undisturbed. Yeah, nobody messing with it, really. It's just nature at its best.
That stream is a small stretch of good news in a river catchment that is otherwise under enormous pressure from intensive agriculture. The Boyne Rivers Trust is trying to replicate that success on other farms, an effort that starts on a polytunnel near Drogheda.
...as soon as possible, but for now we are watering by hand twice a day. So we have a WhatsApp group of our local volunteers volunteer to water morning and evening.
There's few activities more zen than standing in a tunnel with a hose. Are you very at one with yourself?
I'm becoming more at peace with myself, I think, through this project. It's hard not to when you spend a lot of time with trees and saplings and woodlands and...
We're in Coran is coordinating a volunteer effort to gather tree seeds throughout the Boyne catchment area, transfer them to polytunnels in Louth and Meath, before the resulting saplings are then planted on 400 kilometres of the banks of the Boyne and its tributary streams and rivers.
So these are acorns that we will be planting. They've been kind of overwintering. And now, as you can see, they've rooted. So all you do, quite simply, is this one here, you can see the root is a few inches long. And you get fresh compost. Bury the little acorn in a few weeks' time. That will hopefully have some leaves on it.
So far, so cute. A nice community project with small dividends. But this is the point at which the Boyne Rivers Trust has taken things to an entirely new level.
Zoologist Sarah Austin is also the River Trust's farm advisor, going from farm to farm, drafting water quality plans for those farms and offering to plant free trees for the farmers where they will prevent pollution and cool water temperatures. Music
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Chapter 4: What indicators are scientists looking for in the river ecosystem?
It's hugely important, particularly with increasing temperatures. We're seeing in the Boyne high temperatures in the summertime in the rivers, and this is really problematic for our aquatic species, for fish, for fish spawning and so on. And planting a tree gives...
vital shade over a river as well as debris that falls in as providing food any any logs that can end up in the river are great for providing habitat you need areas that are more fast flowing more slow flowing areas for that will pool for fish to rest so trees have huge benefits for biodiversity for climate and so on and it doesn't have to be along the banks of the main section of the river it can be in these little small streams and tributaries
Even just a field drain, it's so important. Anything that carries water has a risk of transporting pollutants to the main river. So although we are the Boyne Rivers Trust, we're working throughout the catchment on all the other rivers and the streams and the drains. Planting along any of these is hugely, hugely beneficial and very important.
So this was an existing beech wood originally, and a lot of beech trees had died off. It's a wildlife haven, especially all year round, but if you come down in the summer now, it's just alive with all bird species.
Rosaline was already sold on the advantages of trees on her farm and has planted loads of borders. Sarah's plan, though, identified a boggy area of potential phosphorus runoff and recommended more tree planting there, advice that Rosaline is grateful for.
Basically, when you're busy, when you farm, anyone who farms, they know your time runs out of your family. You don't really get time. You do what needs to be done, and anything that's just an extra benefit for yourself, really, and the environment, you tend to leave it off.
I'll get to it, and then inevitably you end up not being able to get to it.
Yeah, and when someone comes and does the plan and shows you and explains the land type and what would be beneficial to areas, it does actually make sense, and it's a good thing just to get pointed in the right direction.
But farmers have somebody arriving at the door, selling them something or suggesting that they do something or insisting that they comply with something pretty much every day of the week. How do you avoid just being another person?
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