Andy Moore
Introduction
Andy graduated in 2015 with a BSc (Hons) Environmental Science degree from Ulster University, Coleraine, UK. Andy has a strong background working in the freshwater ecology and hydrology fields within the public and private sectors and has additional experience in terrestrial and aquatic habitat conservation and management. Andy is a lifelong country sports enthusiast with a keen interest in the countryside and biodiversity. He also manages two well established and award-winning conservation groups based on two river catchments situated on the northern shore of Belfast Lough. The groups work closely with the local community, councils and NIEA, and use citizen science to help inform where terrestrial and aquatic habitat enhancement efforts are required and to monitor the efficacy of previous work.
Andy’s project is a multidisciplinary project, entitled- ‘Urban stream restoration in Belfast – identifying opportunities to improve stream management and increase societal worth of urban streams within the city’. His project is focussed on the impacts of urbanisation on freshwater stream health and function. He is studying a range of streams that drain into Belfast Lough and is measuring how the physical and chemical parameters of the stream are altered through waste water discharge into the streams. How this in turn affects macro invertebrate community and food web structure is a major focus of Andy's research.
Urban impacts on freshwaters
A major focus of Andy's project is the effect of urbanisation on key ecosystem services across the naturalised to urban gradient of low order streams. He is specifically studying four broad categories of ecosystem services: Provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural as a function of urbanisation in each of the stream catchments.
Rivers have often been seen as a barrier to development in cities and a challenge to be addressed, often requiring heavy engineering resulting in some river catchments becoming badly degraded due to channelisation, culverting, storm water discharge and pollution with consequential negative impacts on the ecosystem services provided by these rivers and streams.
This project focuses on the hydrology, water quality and ecology of low order streams in the Belfast Lough catchment, to determine the effects of urbanisation. Combining detailed mapping of the drainage infrastructure and hydrological features, with assessments of water quality and community structure will: (1) isolate key sources of stream degradation and challenges to improving water and habitat quality; (2) identify opportunities to improve stream management increasing the ecological and societal worth of our urban streams; and (3) shape best practice for future urban river restoration and management.
Follow Andy over on twitter @belfastrivers
