Water: Monitoring & Assessment
World Water Monitoring Day
Did you ever stop to wonder how we get our information on the condition of our Nation's streams, lakes, estuaries, and coastal waters? Or whether these waters are safe enough to swim in, fish from, or use for drinking or irrigation purposes? Monitoring provides this basic information. The responsibility to monitor water quality rests with many different organizations. States and federal agencies have leading monitoring roles. Utilities, universities, watershed organizations and even individual citizens also monitor chemical, physical, and biological conditions in our waters.
Learn more about water monitoring.
World Water Monitoring Day is an international education and outreach program that builds public awareness of the importance of protecting water resources around the world by engaging people to conduct basic monitoring of their local water bodies. World Water Monitoring Day is officially celebrated on September 18, but monitoring and educational events can take place any time between March 22 and December 31. During this time, people of all ages throughout the world community will have an opportunity to monitor the quality of their local watersheds and enter the results of their efforts into an international database. Simple monitoring kits are available for purchase by anyone interested in participating. These kits can be ordered at any time. For more information, visit World Water Monitoring Day (http://www.worldwatermonitoringday.org/).
Outreach and Educational Materials
EPA has developed a series of outreach and educational materials for Monitoring Month. These are presented below, along with ordering information.
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the Adobe PDF files on this page. See EPA's PDF page for more information about getting and using the free Acrobat Reader.
Thumbnail (click to download full sized image) |
Description |
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Document Number | Type | |
![]() or Table of Contents |
What's Up with our Nation's Waters? (27 pp, 3.6MB, About PDF) |
EPA 841-F-02-002 | Booklet | |
![]() **Get Bugged card/key chain was developed by USEPA Office of Science and Technology. |
Get Bugged About Water Quality! ** A laminated card depicting macroinvertebrates (bugs) that can live only in healthy streams. Comes with a keychain magnifying glass. [PDF File, 2.3 MB] |
EPA 822-E-05-001a EPA 822-E-06-001 (Spanish) Card with keychain | |
Monitor Your Watershed A coloring poster for kids. Includes puzzles and watershed protection tips on the reverse side. (Note: Create your own poster by printing this out in landscape format on legal-sized paper!) [PDF File, 3.8MB]
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EPA 841-H-03-005 | Poster | |
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Help Your Watershed bookmark [PDF File, 2 pp., 141KB] |
EPA 841-H-02-002 | Bookmark |
Ordering Materials
You may order copies of the Monitoring Month outreach materials free of charge.
Via mail: Print the order form (PDF) (1 pg, 41KB) and send it to
National Service Center for Environmental Publications
P.O. Box 42419
Cincinnati, OH 45242-2419
Via phone: Call (800) 490-9198 and provide the document number and quantities.
Via fax: Print the order form (PDF) (1 pg, 41KB) and fax your request to (301) 604-3408.
Via e-mail: Send mail to:nscep@bps-lmit.com with document numbers and quantity desired.