Alongside our other activities, the Westcountry Rivers Trust also undertakes research projects - primarily with the aim of studying fisheries management, river restoration and soil protection.

We support and supervise a number of PhD students in Exeter and Plymouth Universities and we are research collaborators in several international projects concerning land use and fisheries.

Most recently WRT secured a £3.5 million fishery research project, the AARC Project, to use genetic methods to define population boundaries and movements of several species of protected yet enigmatic migratory fish.

The Trust helped pioneer this genetic approach with our original Atlantic Salmon Arc Project, which is now being applied to manage wild salmon populations across the Northern Atlantic.