Ayrshire Rivers Trust

30/09/2026

We’ve been out across the River Ayr catchment collecting data from our network of water temperature loggers in the last week. These small devices quietly record river temperatures at 15 minute intervals, building up a detailed picture of how our river temperatures change throughout the season and it makes for very interesting analysis.

Why is this important? Water temperature is a key factor in determining the health of a river and can have a significant influence on aquatic species. For cold-water species such as Atlantic salmon, prolonged periods of warmer water can place additional stress on fish and affect their ability to survive and thrive.

Temperatures over 22oC for prolonged periods of time are causing high levels of stress and fish will start to reduce their feeding to search for deeper, cooler refuges. As salmon and trout are poikilotherms (species whose internal temperatures fluctuate with their external environmental temperature) the temperature of their environment is critical to their metabolic rate. With higher temperatures ramping their metabolism up (higher calorie demand) and cooler temperatures slowing metabolic rate down (lower calorie burn). As with most things in life there is a ‘goldilocks zone’ and for trout and salmon that is around 14-16oC.

Our loggers showed that in the upper and lower reaches of the catchment the water temperature reached 26oC on the 25th June – most people will remember the days around that week where the air temperature rose to around 32oC in the shade!Shade is the thing we are working very hard to provide on our rivers as there are big differences between the sub catchments across the Ayr with burns such as the Burnock that despite their black, peat-stained water rarely exceeded 20oC and small, skinny but well wooded burns such as the Cleuch Burn that rarely exceeded 20oC as well.

The message is clear – trees and more canopy cover buffer these daytime highs extremely well and that’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as the benefits that trees bring but more on that in another post.

30/09/2026

The Girvan Board will be holding it's Annual General Meeting as described below:

Girvan Board AGM and Stakeholder Meeting - Wednesday 28th October 2026 @ 7pm within the Carrick Centre, Maybole.

Please let us know if you plan on attending to allow us to prepare seating.

11/09/2026

Last month we were invited back on to the Farming and Water Scotland Podcast to discuss Invasive Non-Native Plant (INNPS) control across Ayrshire. The link to this conversation is available at https://www.farmingandwaterscotland.org/resource/what-can-be-done-to-help-reduce-invasive-species/

This is the fourth time we've been invited to speak with Farming and Water Scotland/Farm Advisory Service over the last few years and we're always pleased to sit down for a discussion around how we can make improvements to the water and riparian environments that so many species depend on. Invasive species are still a huge problem and threat to our watercourses and we are working on two substantial projects tackling Japanese knotweed and giant hogweed.

This year we completed our 18th year of giant hogweed control on the River Ayr and its tributaries which sees ART staff tackling GHW through a combination of spraying and stem injection over approximately 140miles of river banks. On the River Stinchar we are working with the District Salmon Fishery Board to tackle Japanese knotweed which has taken over large sections of river bank across the catchment. This work is being funded by the Stinchar DSFB and Carrick Futures and we are very grateful to Carrick Futures for supporting this multi-year project.

This podcast looks at how land managers can handle and reduce invasive species on farm and near waterways keeping to regulation.