Brendan Cox – citizen science project mapping riverine ecosystem health in the Richmond River.

Brendan Cox is a river ecologist who studies at Southern Cross University in Lismore. He’s also Secretary and a founding committee member of Richmond Riverkeeper.

Brendan is a recent recipient of one of the seven grants funded by Southern Cross University that focus on community engagement in the post-flood recovery. His project? Read on to find out more:

Thanks for chatting to us Brendan. First off, what’s your personal connection to the Richmond River?

Over the past 12 years the Richmond River has become the place I call home and has been the place where I have learnt everything I know about rivers and river ecology. All my research has been conducted in the streams, creeks, and rivers of this amazing river system. Unfortunately, a lot of this research has shown how “unhealthy” the river is, and I have made it my goal to do something to change this. And Southern Cross University has now allowed me to do that.

We both attended the Richmond Riverkeeper forum at Southern Cross University earlier this year and took part in an activity where each person stood in the part of the catchment that represented where their heart was located. Where on the river does your heart lie Brendan?

In upper Lecyester Creek, near Barkersvale in the rainforest of the Border Ranges where I am currently examining the impact of megafires on rainforest streams and the invertebrate communities living in these creeks.  Up in the rainforest away from the impacts of human intervention the streams are at their most pure and beautiful and I feel a real need to maintain that purity. Which is how my research has evolved to examine these types of streams.

What led you study to be a river ecologist?

It was a case of a few words changing my life. When I was 30, I decided to change careers and went to university not knowing what I wanted to do. Science seemed like a good start and in a lecture during my undergraduate degree in Environmental Science the lecture mentioned river invertebrates and river health and since then I have worked towards becoming a river ecologist. And that lecturer has been my supervisor on all my research projects from my undergrad, honours and now my PhD.

The best thing about studying science is…

Sharing knowledge.

You’ve recently been announced as a grant recipient as part of Southern Cross University’s community engagement projects to aid ongoing flood recovery in the region. What project did you put forward?

To create and maintain a citizen science project to assess and map river health across the Richmond River catchment. our project will biannually report ecological river health, water quality, and riparian condition collected by the community across the RRC through a published report card and a webpage including 'heat maps' of ecological health parameters. The ongoing dataset will show changes (hopefully an improvement!) in the ecological condition of the RRC over time and draw a link between community works to restore riparian zone conditions and improve river health.

By highlighting areas of concern for focused management and engaging the community with the river and each other (networking), this project will ultimately positively impact the ecosystem health and amenity of the Richmond River. The ultimate benefit to the NR community will be useable/attractive rivers and streams, better connection and recreation amenities with the river, improved resilience, and reduced impact of future floods. Who could argue against a healthy river?

What do you love about citizen science?

Giving people the knowledge to support data collection in a way that would not be achievable without citizen scientist. Citizen science can provide ecological health data on spatial and temporal scales otherwise unattainable. It means we can collect a lot more data more often to create a picture of the health of the creeks, streams, and rivers across the Richmond River catchment and highlight areas of concern for targeted management of the river.

How can people reading get involved in this project?

Email Brendan.cox@scu.edu.au

What’s your favourite Northern Rivers species?

There is a caddisfly larva from the family Hydropsychidae known as the “net-spinning caddis”. Hydropsychidae creates a net out of silk from its mouth and uses it to capture its food which are small particles like leaf detritus and even animal parts from the water column, each silk thread is arranged in such a way to create mesh webbing that stretches and balloons with food in the water’s current. It has also been found that they act as an ecosystem engineer in streams by increasing the stability of benthic substrates (the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water) during flooding.

Here is a photo I took recently of a Hydropsychidae caught in Lecyester creek: