Illinois RiverWatch Celebrates 30 Years of Community Science

For three decades, volunteers across Illinois have been participating in water monitoring activities with Illinois RiverWatch. Some of these “community scientists” got involved because they love the outdoors and were curious about what is living in local streams. Others joined the program due to specific concerns about pollution and water quality. Regardless of their motivations, volunteers continue to collect valuable data on Illinois streams today.

Illinois RiverWatch is a community science program which teaches volunteers to monitor water quality in their local streams. The program was founded in 1995 as part of the EcoWatch Network coordinated by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Now operated by the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, RiverWatch is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025. The RiverWatch program has expanded greatly over the years by training new volunteers and offering a multitude of opportunities to become involved.

A Typical Day in the Stream

RiverWatch volunteers become trained as community scientists by attending one of our spring workshops. Following training, they are set loose to select a stream site to monitor (with landowner approval). During a typical monitoring event, a team of volunteers led by one or more trained community scientists will trek out to the stream to observe habitat conditions and collect aquatic macroinvertebrates.

Aquatic macroinvertebrates are the small animals living in the water, including insects, worms, snails, mussels, crayfish and more. These animals have known tolerances to pollution and their communities react to changes in their environment which makes them good bioindicators. For example, stonefly larvae (or nymphs) are sensitive to pollution and are only found in healthy streams while leeches are pollution tolerant and can be found in almost any stream, regardless of the water quality. Based on the macroinvertebrates the community scientists collect, they can estimate the quality of the water at that location.

To collect the invertebrates, volunteers kick up stream sediments or scrape at submerged logs while holding a D-frame net immediately downstream of the area being disturbed. Any invertebrates that are dislodged from their homes are carried by the flowing water straight into the net. The invertebrates collected in the net are identified and counted in order to evaluate the health of the stream.

Water quality monitoring activities are conducted in two seasonal windows: May/June and September/October. During these time periods, macroinvertebrates tend to be found at larger sizes, making them easier to identify. After collecting macroinvertebrates, volunteers take their samples back to the lab to identify what they found using microscopes. Using this data, they can calculate a water quality score for their site.

Long-Term Participation Provides the Greatest Understanding

While new volunteers are trained every year, several of our community scientists have been with us for more than a decade. One such volunteer is Bob Weck, a former faculty member at Southwestern Illinois College.

Weck shares, “My participation in Illinois RiverWatch started in 1996, monitoring Piscasaw Creek in McHenry County with my students. As an educator, this program has provided my students and me with real, practical and locally relevant experiences in stream ecology.”

For RiverWatch, the experiences of these students also translate into a wealth of information.

One advantage to long-term data collection at individual sites is that we are able to observe how macroinvertebrate communities are changing over time. One year of data will help us have a baseline of water quality in that stream, but when we have several years of data from the same location, we can start looking at trends. Water quality scores generally vary from year to year, but if we are seeing consistent uphill or downhill trends in the data, that gives us far more information than we can get from a single monitoring event.

The data collected by RiverWatch volunteers is shared with the public in several ways. We produce quarterly newsletters which give updates on our program and highlight specific projects. We also release an Annual Report each year that summarizes all of the data collected for the year. RiverWatch staff, and sometimes volunteers, will report data at conferences and meetings. New this year, as part of our 30th anniversary, RiverWatch staff are releasing two watershed reports per month, each providing an overview of watershed characteristics, local issues related to water quality, and an analysis of RiverWatch data collected in the watershed.

New Opportunities with RiverWatch PRO

RiverWatch is also starting out the year by formalizing opportunities for community scientists to participate in projects that help answer important questions. RiverWatch Participatory Research Opportunities, or RiverWatch PRO, is a set of special community science projects that connect researchers or community partners with volunteers to gather data that will aid in answering specific questions.

One RiverWatch PRO project that is beginning its fifth year is the Sangamon Mussel Monitoring project. This project seeks to answer questions about the health of freshwater mussel communities that are living in the Upper Sangamon River in central Illinois. Interested volunteers can join us as we go mussel grubbing at four locations on the Sangamon River in July and August.

This year, we launched another RiverWatch PRO project: Illinois Crayfish Finders. In partnership with Dusty Swedberg of the Illinois Natural History Survey, we aim to answer questions about the range of two invasive crayfish species (rusty crayfish and red swamp crayfish) in the state. Participation in Illinois Crayfish Finders is easy. Volunteers simply take photos of any crayfish they find and submit the photos on iNaturalist. Any crayfish photos taken in Illinois in 2025-26 will automatically become part of the dataset.

Other Ways to Connect with Illinois RiverWatch

While scientific exploration of stream habitats is a high priority for Illinois RiverWatch, we also connect with people through a variety of fun and educational events. Every year, we hold a Fall Speaker Series from September to November and a Winter Speaker Series between January and March. We aim to provide a variety of speakers and topics. You can also find RiverWatch staff periodically as exhibitors at conferences, festivals and other community events.

Last, but certainly not least, this fall we are hosting a 30th Anniversary Celebration on September 20, 2025 at Kankakee River State Park. This event will be a day full of fun, education and celebration including a special edition 30th Anniversary t-shirt. We are still finalizing the details of the event but watch our website and social media for registration to open this summer. We would love to share the celebration!

Resources

Illinois RiverWatch