There has been public anger over pollution in waterways.
People are taking pollution monitoring into their own hands.
The Evenlode is a body of water in the Cotswolds Hills. He is going to take a chemistry set.
The river has become part of the man's life.
He was determined to act when the waters looked like soup.
John became a citizen scientist when he joined a protest and posted images on social media. He hopes that his data will help in the effort to clean up rivers.
Thousands of people have protested over sewage spills in rivers and on beaches from Essex to Edinburgh. There has been a surge in citizen scientists looking at the health of the nation's waterways.
Tracking the numbers of plants, birds and insects has been done by the public in the UK for many years.
There is growing interest in sounding the alarm on pollution as more people spend time on the water paddle-boarding or wild swimming.
The number of community groups monitoring for chemical pollutants has doubled in the last year, according to Earthwatch. There are more samples taken by citizen scientists on this section of the Evenlode.
Volunteers are trained by Earthwatch to test for nitrates andphosphates.
These are naturally present in small amounts but can cause a lot of blooms of algae.
Scientists and regulators use the data John collects on the Evenlode to figure out how pollution levels change over time.
John is a citizen scientist who is concerned with the health of the river.
Through dialogue and action by the water utility, we hope it will be possible to restore the Evenlode to its former state.
Through picture perfect towns, the Evenlode joins the Thames. Hilaire Belloc wrote about how the Evenlode bound his heart to English.
The river is polluted, causing weed growth, declining fish and insect numbers, and cloudiness throughout the year. There is more than one it.
England's rivers are polluted with sewage, agricultural waste and pollution according to a report by the Environmental Audit Committee.
The monitoring regimes were described as outdated.
Dr Heather Moorhouse of Earthwatch says that citizen scientists can put pressure on regulators to clean up their act.
She says that citizen science is helping us understand water quality in our rivers.
The data needs to be used to improve the way our rivers are managed.
Pollution from sewage and agricultural waste is the main problem for the Evenlode.
The problem of river pollution is being kept on the political agenda because of the huge boom in people collecting data.
The visibility and transparency of data that is being collected by the public is one of the main drivers for pushing this up the political agenda.
John wants to relive his childhood memories one day.
He says, "We all share childhood memories in the summer time of taking our shoes and socks off and paddling in streams and rivers and seeing our toes when we're waded up to our knees."
It's possible on some of our tributaries, it's possible on some of the burns up in Scotland, but it's not possible in our river Evenlode.
Helen can be followed on social media by using the handlehbriggs.
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