We spent a couple of days in Southeastern England exploring the Rivers Test and Avon made famous by Izaak Walton and others. Heading on the Salisbury Plain which is also the home of Stonehenge (did a Griswold on that site), these are beautiful and very productive streams albeit very inaccessible to anglers who don't have lots of money. The difference between chalkstreams whose chemistries are affected by the limestone lithology and the freestone streams of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Northern England is very apparent (see the large resident brown trout in the aquatic veg - Ranunculus? - in River Test photo above). Dave will be doing some more research on the centuries long maintenance of the fisheries here, and current programs to improve water quality in the Southampton region which is home to some of the most industrialized agriculture we've seen since leaving the US.
In Paris now and looking at the canals that link the Seine and Marne Rivers, I'm thinking that it is going to be very interesting to try to make sense of how these historic yet seemingly unnecessary hydrologic features affect riverine ecology today, and how this might change in light of the EU's Water Framework Directive, Biodiversity policies, and French landscape management policies. I'm just beginning to study some French vocabulary to prepare for research to be conducted further down the road in Burgundy, Lyon, and the Pyrennees.
More later, au revoir!
Posts
