WATR Partners with UWE Bristol on Innovative River Monitoring Project to Transform UK Water Quality Assessment

London, UK - [23/04/2026] - WATR today announced its collaboration with the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) on the groundbreaking MaD-OPS (Monitoring and Detection of Organic Pollution from Sewage) project, a UKRI and NERC-funded initiative aimed at revolutionising how river health is monitored and understood across the United Kingdom.

Rivers across the UK are facing significant ecological challenges following years of environmental pressure, over-exploitation, and increasing urbanisation. Outdated Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) systems, originally designed for emergency use, are now routinely discharging sewage into waterways due to population growth and system limitations. Recent regulatory developments, including Section 82 of the UK’s continuous water quality monitoring programme, now mandate more comprehensive monitoring upstream and downstream of all CSO discharge points.

However, current monitoring approaches focused on a limited set of physicochemical parameters such as dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, conductivity, and ammonia, offer only a partial picture of river health. Traditional biological assessments, including macroinvertebrate and faecal coliform sampling, rely on infrequent spot sampling, often missing critical pollution events.

The MaD-OPS project addresses these gaps by deploying advanced fluorescence-based optical sensors developed by Chelsea Technologies. These sensors continuously monitor key biological indicators, including tryptophan-like fluorescence (TLF), fluorescent dissolved organic matter (FDOM), and algal pigments such as phycocyanin and chlorophyll-a. This high-resolution data is complemented by spot sampling and physicochemical measurements to provide a comprehensive, real-time understanding of river ecosystems.

WATR’s platform plays a central role in enabling this integrated sensing network. Its cloud-based dashboard facilitates high-frequency, real-time data collection and remote access, while supporting seamless integration with third-party sensors. The platform’s API capabilities and collaborative environment allow project partners to work effectively across multiple challenging field sites, aligning with the project’s vision of smarter, more meaningful monitoring.

The project, developed in response to the urgent need for long-term, high-resolution river monitoring, brings together leading organisations including UWE Bristol, Chelsea Technologies, and The Rivers Trust. It aims to demonstrate the value of combining biological, chemical, and physical data streams, assess the effectiveness of fluorescence sensors in detecting organic pollution, and develop a dynamic, user-friendly Water Quality Index (WQI) for real-time river health assessment.

Success will be measured through continuous monitoring across seven deployment sites, validation of sensor data against laboratory instruments, and the identification of distinct pollution signatures, including those from sewage and agricultural sources. The project also seeks to establish dynamic baselines by comparing impacted sites to headwaters and to demonstrate the added value of continuous biological monitoring.

By working together with our UK partners and stakeholders, we are developing the latest sensing technologies, in combination with AI, to give us new real-time insights into the health of our rivers. This is science and technology delivering for our communities and for our environment. This is world leading research and technology development taking place here in the UK, for the benefit of the UK. Partnerships that deliver real impact.

This project represents a pivotal step forward in how we understand and protect our rivers. At WATR, we believe that better decisions come from better data but more importantly, from smarter data. Our collaboration with UWE Bristol and project partners exemplifies how technology, science, and shared purpose can come together to address some of the most pressing environmental challenges we face today. By enabling real-time, biologically informed monitoring, we are helping to create a future where water management is proactive, precise, and truly impactful.

The MaD-OPS project also has strong potential for future expansion, including links to the EU-funded Twin Waters initiative, further strengthening international collaboration and innovation in water quality monitoring.

For more information contact the WATR team - https://www.watr.tech/contact-us