Privacy Policy

It is Open Rivers Programme's policy to respect your privacy and comply with any applicable law and regulation regarding any personal information we may collect about you, including across our website, https://www.openrivers.eu, and other sites we own and operate.

This policy is effective as of 20 September 2021 and was last updated on 20 September 2021.

Information We Collect

Information we collect includes both information you knowingly and actively provide us when using or participating in any of our services and promotions, and any information automatically sent by your devices in the course of accessing our products and services.

Log Data

When you visit our website, our servers may automatically log the standard data provided by your web browser. It may include your device’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, your browser type and version, the pages you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on each page, other details about your visit, and technical details that occur in conjunction with any errors you may encounter.

Please be aware that while this information may not be personally identifying by itself, it may be possible to combine it with other data to personally identify individual persons.

Collection and Use of Information

We may collect personal information from you when you do any of the following on our website:

  • Contact us via email, social media, or on any similar technologies
  • When you mention us on social media

We may collect, hold, use, and disclose information for the following purposes, and personal information will not be further processed in a manner that is incompatible with these purposes:

Please be aware that we may combine information we collect about you with general information or research data we receive from other trusted sources.

Security of Your Personal Information

When we collect and process personal information, and while we retain this information, we will protect it within commercially acceptable means to prevent loss and theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification.

Although we will do our best to protect the personal information you provide to us, we advise that no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure, and no one can guarantee absolute data security. We will comply with laws applicable to us in respect of any data breach.

You are responsible for selecting any password and its overall security strength, ensuring the security of your own information within the bounds of our services.

How Long We Keep Your Personal Information

We keep your personal information only for as long as we need to. This time period may depend on what we are using your information for, in accordance with this privacy policy. If your personal information is no longer required, we will delete it or make it anonymous by removing all details that identify you.

However, if necessary, we may retain your personal information for our compliance with a legal, accounting, or reporting obligation or for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific, or historical research purposes or statistical purposes.

Children’s Privacy

We do not aim any of our products or services directly at children under the age of 13, and we do not collect personal information about children under 13.

If we receive personal information about you from a third party, we will protect it as set out in this privacy policy. If you are a third party providing personal information about somebody else, you represent and warrant that you have such person’s consent to provide the personal information to us.

If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time. We will provide you with the ability to unsubscribe from our email-database or opt out of communications. Please be aware we may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity.

If you believe that any information we hold about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, please contact us using the details provided in this privacy policy. We will take reasonable steps to correct any information found to be inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, or out of date.

If you believe that we have breached a relevant data protection law and wish to make a complaint, please contact us using the details below and provide us with full details of the alleged breach. We will promptly investigate your complaint and respond to you, in writing, setting out the outcome of our investigation and the steps we will take to deal with your complaint. You also have the right to contact a regulatory body or data protection authority in relation to your complaint.

Use of Cookies

We use “cookies” to collect information about you and your activity across our site. A cookie is a small piece of data that our website stores on your computer, and accesses each time you visit, so we can understand how you use our site. This helps us serve you content based on preferences you have specified.

Limits of Our Policy

Our website may link to external sites that are not operated by us. Please be aware that we have no control over the content and policies of those sites, and cannot accept responsibility or liability for their respective privacy practices.

Changes to This Policy

At our discretion, we may change our privacy policy to reflect updates to our organisation processes, current acceptable practices, or legislative or regulatory changes. If we decide to change this privacy policy, we will post the changes here at the same link by which you are accessing this privacy policy.

If required by law, we will get your permission or give you the opportunity to opt in to or opt out of, as applicable, any new uses of your personal information.

Contact Us

For any questions or concerns regarding your privacy, you may contact us using the following details:

info@openrivers.eu

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Scotton Weir, England

The removal of the Scotton Weir opened up 18km of river to migratory fish such as salmon, sea trout and European eel. Moreover, its removal will help to restore natural processes to the river.

Introduction

The Humber catchment is the largest in Britain at 26,100km2 and barrier removal is a critical element of the Humber River Basin Management Plan that aims to meet WFD targets for good ecological status for all waterbodies. Major tributaries like the River Nidd are failing for the lack of Atlantic salmon due to barriers to migration (like Scotton Weir) but other species with equal conservation status (eg European eel and lamprey spp.) are all similarly restricted.

The Wild Trout Trust has partnered with like-minded organisations within the Dales to Vales Rivers Network, and angling clubs like Nidderdale AC, Harrogate Flyfishers, Knaresborough Anglers upstream, and Harrogate AA downstream to improve habitat within the main Nidd channel and key tributaries for spawning, part of which involved smaller barrier / culvert removals. Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty has also just completed a series of weir removals on the Laver (Ure trib) for WFD reasons. However, to date, reconnection of the main River Nidd has been relatively slow, hence the importance of this project.

Project context and opportunity

Extensive weir removal and fish easement projects have been carried out on other major rivers in the Humber River Basin. Salmon has returned to the R Don in Sheffield City centre and regularly caught on the Aire at Leeds, just downstream of a series of fish passes which were completed in 2022. Small numbers of salmon parr have been surveyed via electric-fishing from upstream of Hunsingore Weir (Dr A Nunn pers comm. 2021; Yorks Ouse Salmon Project), so modification of Hunsingore by the Environment Agency (2022/23) and removal of Scotton Weir in this project (the two main weirs identified as barriers to migration) should allow their rapid spread up through the Nidd system.

Yorkshire rivers have been subject to >5 ‘one in one hundred year’ events in the last 10 years and a number of Industrial Revolution era weirs have been structurally compromised as a direct result. Scotton weir was damaged and partially breached in December 2018 but impoundment and fish passage remained issues. Clearly, many more are now approaching the end of their ‘life-span’ and present flood risk / safety issues if they collapse during / after high rainfall events. The breach in Scotton Weir is a warning sign.

It is hoped that the project at Scotton Weir can be replicated and act as a local demonstration case study to catalyse further activity in the catchment. The Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust and other partners within the Dales to Vales Rivers Network have expressed interest in using this project for knowledge exchange and best practice dissemination.

At a glance

Country England
River River Nidd
Km opened 18
Key habitats main river channel, riparian zone, access to better spawning & juvenile habitats in tributaries
Focal species Atlantic salmon, brown trout, European eel, lamprey species, grayling, chub
Date of dam removal August 2020
Project status REMOVED

Project aims

Scotton Weir is ~170km from the tidal limit in the upper Humber, but salmon already migrate from the Humber via the Ouse and into the lower Nidd ~75km downstream. It is one of two weirs severely impeding fish passage on the mid to lower Nidd, with potential to reconnect >50km of mainstem channel and >80km if key spawning tributaries are included. The structure at Scotton Weir was ~75m wide and ~4m high when fully intact and impounded the river upstream for ~800m masking the true character of the river channel. Removal of Scotton alone will reconnect ~18km of main channel and ~35km when considering access to tributaries.

There are expected benefits to the wider fishery in terms of reconnecting fragmented fish communities & increased resilience. At a local scale, two angling societies have the rights to fish and both envisage increased angling opportunities with the renaturalisation of the channel. A natural bank with native vegetation and availability of large woody material, instead of an impounded bank with limited vegetative cover, presents hydraulic roughness, habitat complexity and greater biodiversity as ecosystem benefits. From a geomorphological perspective, full removal will reinstate the natural transport of sediment down the channel.

Project partners

Wild Trout Trust

Latest news updates

– September 8, 2022

Scotton Weir – REMOVED

– August 8, 2022

120-year-old obsolete dam removed in Ukraine to restore rivers in the Carpathian Mountains

Scotton Weir removal – July 19, 2022

One of the first programme-supported dam removals is scheduled to take place this month

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21st October 2022

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