Want to take part in the Coastwatch Survey ?

Two of our youngest volunteers get stuck in at a recent training session and walk along the Leitrim River

The annual Coastwatch eco-audit of the shore is a once off snap shot survey of your shore taken at low tide between 15th Sept and 15th Oct.

Wicklow has been chosen as a key participant this year and volunteers are needed to carry out the work.

If you are interested go to www.coastwatch.org and follow the steps to choose a 500m survey location. Once you have chosen a location send an e mail to coastwatchsurvey2013@gmail.com to book your site. Following that take a walk along your stretch of sea shore around low tide and complete the Coastwatch survey questionnaire to record observations on animals, plants, litter, stream quality, erosion and use.

Survey forms can be downloaded from the website, along with notes on Health and Safety. Alternatively copies of the forms are available from the Recycling Centre at the Murrough, Wicklow Town.

Findings and any photos are transferred to computer (like completing a flight booking on line), or posted back to the Coastwatch office in Trinity College Dublin so others can input the data.

Once on the shore, it takes about 30 minutes to do the survey on a straight shore and up to an hour if you have streams entering and interesting shore habitats. It takes another 5-20 min/survey unit if a volunteer is willing to input your data.

So would you like to participate? Either get together with friends to book a whole 5 km block of coast and survey the 10 survey units between you, or just take one or two 500m survey unit(s).

From a small Irish survey in 1987 the Coastwatch survey has grown to include countries all across Europe and beyond and is now a Europe wide citizen science project run by an international network of environmental groups and universities often with EU and government sponsorship.

This year Coastwatch celebrates the 25th anniversary of the international Coastwatch Survey… let’s see if we can gather coastal data from 1000 survey sites on the island of Ireland! And get the results back in time for a Coastwatch Gathering and International Conference in Ireland on Dec 1st and 2nd.

For further information contact:

Karin Dubsky International Coordinator.

kdubsky@coastwatch.org,

or 00 353 (0)86 8111 684

or one of the Coastwatch team in Trinity College Dublin on 01 896 2599

For local Wicklow contact:

Moira Byrne, Wicklow County Council – 1890 22 22 76/0404-64118