Modular River Survey: MoRPh Rivers Citizen Science

MoRPh Rivers is a field survey for monitoring river channel and riparian physical habitats at scales that can complement biological surveys. The survey was developed through a partnership between Cartographer Studios, Queen Mary University of London and the Environment Agency. You can download technical documents relating to the MoRPh survey from the MoRPh website, https://modularriversurvey.org. These documents include a manual that fully describes the survey and also a document, "MoRPh Index Calculations 2020", that explains how the fourteen indicators that are automatically generated from each MoRPh survey are calculated. The MoRPh survey is applied to a short length or "module" of river that is approximately two channel widths in length. The survey is designed to be applied to the small (≤30m wide) single thread river channels that are typical of England. Within each river module the survey records the physical and vegetation structural features and human interventions and pressures observed across the river bed, the channel edge – water margins, the bank faces and the bank tops of a river to a distance of 10m. The observations collected in each MoRPh survey are summarised into fourteen indices: Channel Characteristics INDEX 1: Number of present/extensive flow types INDEX 2: Highest energy present/extensive flow type INDEX 3: Number of present/extensive bed material types INDEX 4: Coarsest present/extensive mineral bed material type INDEX 5: Average alluvial bed material size (phi units) INDEX 6: Average alluvial bed material size class INDEX 7: Extent of superficial bed siltation INDEX 8: Channel physical habitat complexity INDEX 9: Number of aquatic vegetation morphotypes Riparian Characteristics (Bank Face and Bank Top) INDEX 10: Riparian physical habitat complexity INDEX 11: Riparian vegetation structural complexity Human Pressures and Impacts INDEX 12: Degree of human pressure imposed by bank top land cover INDEX 13: Channel reinforcement INDEX 14: Non-native invasive plant extent If you have any queries about this data please contact the Modular River Survey Team Acknowledgement: Copyright 2016-Present Cartographer Studios Ltd and Modular River Survey Contributors