The River Lathkill with normal winter flow

The BBC Countryfile team have been filming a water tracing experiment undertaken by Professor John Gunn as part of research for Natural England that aims to understand why the upper River Lathkill in Derbyshire dries up, and whether mitigation is possible. The programme was broadcast on Sunday 13th November and included footage of John and Countryfile's Ellie Harrison injecting fluorescent dye into an 18th century lead mine sough some 18m below the dry river bed. John will also be talking about the project in January at the Minewater 2012 meeting in Cardiff and at a Water Sciences Group Seminar in the School on 30th April.

The Countryfile programme will be available for the next few days at the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017j31k (The River Lathkill feature is approximately 34 minutes into the programme).