Spend one minute with us, rate 10 photos and you'll have one foot in our virtual laboratory. Spend five minutes with us, rate 50 photos, and you'll be well on your way to becoming a seasoned citizen scientist. We've got over 30,000 photos to rate. How many can you get through?

Rate this Scene

Working alongside The University of Warwick, we're undertaking the biggest ever research project into the science of scenic beauty by water.

Scenery not just greenery has been shown to be key to better health and wellbeing. A previous study by the University of Warwick found people feel healthier when they spend time in more scenic areas, and that canals make the biggest contribution to scenic beauty in towns and cities. 

We're looking to protect our precious canal spaces and revive the ones that are most vulnerable, and to do this we need everyone’s help to determine what makes spaces so scenic.

Significant wellbeing benefits

Having regular access to blue and green spaces helps us to find beauty in the everyday and can have significant wellbeing benefits for everyone, especially the 8.8 million people who live near a canal or river. Spending time on and by water, whether it be on your lunchbreak, daily commute, or a weekend stroll, really can make you happier and healthier.

Our research shows that our waterway network provides £1 billion of savings to the NHS each year through health and wellbeing benefits offered to everyone that visits. So, now more than ever, it is critical that we can continue to offer scenic sanctuaries for people to visit through working together to protect this valuable resource.