Came across this on my commute today.

There’s permanent water flow measuring equipment just North of Bewdley on the Severn, it’s in that building in the second picture.
There’s a sort of zip wire from the building to the opposite bank and an ultrasonic thing that measures the depth and speed of the water gets winched across.
The Environment Agency have got a load of smaller portable measuring devices and once a year they get them all together to calibrate them. That’s what all the little orange boats are. Each one’s got an ultrasonic thingy and a GPS for measuring river flow. Most of them get pulled across by hand, but they have got some that are radio controlled for when they can’t access both banks.
The manufacturers were there as well with some new demonstration models.

Most of the action was taking place on the far bank, so I learned what I could by chatting to one of the guys pulling his boat across.

Cool

Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP), or a day out on the river with a pub lunch as it’s also known
😉

Nifty kit that can map the river velocity and profile the river topography.

I walk my dogs past that building everyday, ( just live round the corner) I was wondering why a portaloo had arrived in the middle of a field. It’s in your second picture. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity