Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Research

Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment

Identifying a water quality problem in receiving waters is often the first step in the watershed management process. Water quality monitoring is also critical to ensure that watershed management strategies are improving water quality. Research within the National Water Program is improving sampling design and watershed monitoring approaches, enhancing monitoring methods and techniques, and examining data credibility. This research improves the understanding of local water resources and helps communities make informed decisions that improve water quality.

Research pertaining to "Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment" can be broken into the following categories (linked further down on this page):
Data Analysis and Assessment
Monitoring Methods and Techniques
Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Data

Data Analysis and Assessment
In order to obtain the highest quality data, the most appropriate sampling design must be utilized. Land Grant University and CSREES research explores sampling strategies and data assessment in order to yield the most effective watershed management decisions. Watershed monitoring approaches are also the focus of much attention.

Accomplishments and Examples:
Researchers at the University of Arkansas found that current sampling methods result in pollution loads for streams being underestimated by as much as 20 percent . Pollution load increases dramatically during storms, which are rarely accounted for by monthly sampling.

The development of watershed level monitoring approaches to support watershed projects has been studied by researchers at North Carolina State University by evaluating US EPA Section 319 National Monitoring Projects (NMP) . Effective monitoring designs identified were: paired watersheds, nested watersheds, single station-before/after, and upstream/downstream. A key recommendation is to monitor for multiple years in order to document consistent, improving trends, document statistically significant trends, and deal with the lag time that sometimes occurs between land treatment and water quality improvements.

The Utah State University Regional Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (REMAP) Project , with funding from US EPA, is developing a top-down or strategic approach for monitoring rangeland watersheds. The long-term goal of this proposal is to help managers understand the cause of environmental degradation and the location of potential problem areas within these watersheds. This research should improve the allocation of resources by providing greater insight to the identification of problem areas and determining linkages between these areas and stream sites.

Monitoring Methods and Techniques
Pathogens:
The public is demanding increased water quality monitoring to ensure our waters are protected from various types of runoff that causes elevated pathogen and bacteria levels in the water. Research through CSREES and the Land Grant System is investigating and comparing different methods to access bacteria levels in waterways so that pathogens can be properly managed and prevented within watersheds. Researchers are also exploring novel molecular techniques of Bacterial Source Tracking (BST). New BST methods are a new tool for determining Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) allocations, TMDL implementation plan development, and watershed restoration.

Volunteer water quality monitoring programs in the states of Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin have teamed up, in an Extension Education grant from CSREES—“Building Capacity of E. coli Monitoring by Volunteer Networks: A Multi-State Effort” , to evaluate several types of e. coli monitoring test kits for use with volunteers and to develop a comprehensive training and education program regarding bacteria monitoring. The project website also summarizes related bacterial monitoring research .

The Maine Shore Stewards , University of Maine Cooperative Extension, is coordinating a new program funded through EPA, the Maine Coastal Swim Beach Program. The program will be conducting a side by side study of two bacterial monitoring methods – Enterolert method by Idexx in volunteer labs vs. membrane filtration with 24 hour incubation in certified professional labs.

The overarching goal of the Environmental Pathogens Information Network (EPINET) , a National Facilitation Project funded by CSREES in 2004, is to develop and then transfer the fullest possible understanding of how microbial pathogens enter into and then function in watersheds so that the spread of microorganisms and the diseases they cause can be properly managed and prevented.

Researchers at Virginia Tech host a website that provides an overview and describes current methodologies and projects associated with bacterial source tracking (BST).

University of Rhode Island researchers are fingerprinting sources of bacterial input into small residential watersheds. This new method may be useful to identify localities where watershed managers could initiate appropriate counter measures that lead to water quality enhancement.

Researchers at North Carolina State University are developing and testing new bacterial source tracking (BST) techniques in conjunction with watershed-based hydrologic analysis in a toolbox approach to assist in the identification of sources and loading rate of fecal coliform bacteria in three North Carolina estuarine watersheds . This information will be used to improve the capacity of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) modeling and management for these and other watersheds on the coast.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina are utilizing the existing framework established by the previously mentioned project, but are using viral pathogens as tools to investigate the sources and quantify loads of fecal contamination from three watersheds with active crop and forestry agriculture. They are providing input to the State’s Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) model to be used for TMDL implementation.

Research data from the University of South Florida suggest that enterococci rather than E. coli should be used as source tracking bacteria . They also measured the pros and cons of two typing methods and make recommendations for future development.

Biotic Indices:
Macroinvertebrate communities in streams are widely used to assess and monitor ecosystem integrity. Research at Land Grant Universities and within CSREES is assessing established biotic indices and developing and testing new biotic indices to assess water quality and watershed health.

Researchers at the University of Vermont are conducting a project to improve tolerance-based biotic indices in agricultural watersheds . This research program is designed to provide the scientific underpinning needed to select appropriate indicators for monitoring and assessing streams in agricultural watersheds.

American Samoa Community College researchers are identifying freshwater fishes and invertebrates that might serve as metrics for a multimetric index of biotic integrity for streams of American Samoa and analyzing chemical and physical properties of stream waters to correlate these properties with differences observed for the biological metrics.

A project at UNH is developing keys for identification of aquatic insects that will be useful in developing state and regional level water quality indices therefore allowing rapid and more precise assessment of water quality.

Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Data
In addition to engaging stakeholders in local water quality and watershed issues, volunteer water quality monitoring programs collect valuable water quality data that can help communities make informed decisions that improve water quality. Research within CSREES and Extension volunteer monitoring programs is improving the data credibility of volunteer monitoring programs. Data from these Extension volunteer monitoring programs is also being utilized in other research projects.

Data Credibility:
Researchers at Michigan State University as part of their project "Information Exchange, Citizen Monitoring and Best Management Practices within Agricultural Watersheds” are comparing data collected by high school volunteers and researchers (Habron 2003).

Researchers at the University of Minnesota explored how well beginning volunteer monitors could sort and identify macroinvertebrates as compared to professional entomologists. They make specific recommendations to improve volunteer monitoring programs.

A project at the Center for the Environment at Cornell University demonstrated that volunteers with only a modest amount of training, when provided with appropriate taxonomic keys, can collect macroinvertebrate samples, identify organisms to family, and calculate appropriate metrics. For more information, contact Linda Wagenet lpw2@cornell.edu.

The University of Rhode Island Watershed Watch program conducted a study comparing volunteer collected data with professional collected data. They found no significant differences between the two adding support to volunteer data credibility. For more information, contact Linda Green lgreen@uri.edu.

Volunteer Monitoring Data Usage in Research:
The New Hampshire Lakes Lay Monitoring Program (NH LLMP) of the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Cooperative Extension incorporates a new participatory research program to address monitors’ concerns (see Participatory Research: Linking Citizens to Scientists as published in the EPA's Volunteer Monitor Newsletter for more information). Also, NH LLMP volunteer monitoring and natural resources inventories by stakeholder groups was used in the production of Watershed Natural Resources Inventories which were used for watershed planning and pollution prevention.

Volunteer monitors associated with the Massachusetts Water Resources Center , University of Massachusetts Extension participated in the internationally recognized Acid Rain Monitoring Project .

Indicates work supported by the USDA-CSREES National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program .

The intent of this page is not to catalogue all activities but rather to indicate the types of research in the Watershed Management theme across the U.S.