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Water Quality Monitoring Program

Elements of a River Basin Water Monitoring and Assessment Program

Monitoring is an important element of water resources management. The efficient monitoring of water quality requires a well structured plan and strategy, elements of which are defined in national legislation, e.g., for the US under ..... or the countries of the European Union by the Water Famework Directive (2000/60/EC), and WFD document library.

The following 10 point are based on a USEPA document: ..........

1. Monitoring Program Strategy
   The Monitoring Program should follow a clear mission statement specifying the objectives, clearly describing (enumerating) the geographical scope, and defining a time line for the objectives specified.`

   It is important that the strategy be comprehensive in scope and identify the technical issues and resource needs that are currently impediments to an adequate monitoring program.

2. Monitoring Objectives
   The program must identify the monitoring objectives critical to the design of a monitoring program that is efficient and effective in generating data that serve management decision needs and meets all the applicable regulatory and reporting requirements under international agreements.

   For example, monitoring objectives could include helping establish water quality standards, determining water quality status and trends, identifying impaired waters, identifying causes and sources of water quality problems, implementing water quality management programs, and evaluating program effectiveness. Consistent with the regulatory framework, monitoring objectives should reflect the decision needs relevant to all types of waters within a river basin.

3. Monitoring Design
   An approach and rationale for selection of monitoring designs and sample sites that best serve the monitoring objectives must be explicitly defined. The monitoring program may integrate several monitoring designs (e.g., fixed station, intensive and screening-level monitoring, event driven and ad hoc sampling) to meet the full range of decision needs. The monitoring design should include a consideration of probabilities of flow and loads, for making statistically valid inferences about the condition of all water types in the basin, over time.

4. Core and Supplemental Water Quality Indicators
   The monitoring plan should use a tiered approach to monitoring that includes core indicators selected to represent each applicable designated use, plus supplemental indicators selected according to site-specific or project-specific decision criteria. Core indicators for each water resource type include physical/habitat, chemical/toxicological, and biological/ecological endpoints as appropriate, and can be used routinely to assess attainment with applicable water quality standards.

   Standard water quality parameters that mostly also lend themselves to continuous, automatic monitoring include:

   • temperature, conductivity, turbidity, TSS, p02, BOD, nitrate, phosphate, coliforms.

   Priority substances are defined in the EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC. This is based on A combined monitoring-based and modelling-based priority setting (COMMPS) The main part, Revised proposal for a list of priority substances in the context of the water framework directive (COMMPS procedure) can downloaded as a PDF files (Report - 480K; Annex - 880K).

   Supplemental indicators are used when there is a reasonable expectation that a specific pollutant may be present in a watershed, when core indicators indicate impairment, or to support a special study such as screening for potential pollutants of concern.

5. Quality Assurance
   Quality management plans and quality assurance program/project plans are established, maintained, and peer reviewed in accordance with national policy to ensure the scientific validity of monitoring and laboratory activities, and to ensure that national and international reporting requirements are met.

6. Data Management
   Data should be managed in an accessible electronic data system for water quality, fish tissue, toxicity, sediment chemistry, habitat, biological data, with timely data entry (following appropriate metadata and georeferencing standards) and public access, preferably on-line through the Internet.

   The water quality data must be stored in a format and structure compatible will all other hydro-meteorological information.

7. Data Analysis/Assessment
   The plan must include a methodology for assessing attainment of water quality standards based on analysis of various types of data (chemical, physical, biological, land use) from various sources, for all waterbody types and all waters. The methodology includes criteria for compiling, analyzing, and integrating all readily available and existing information (e.g., volunteer monitoring data, discharge monitoring reports).

8. Reporting
   Under the plan, timely and complete water quality reports and lists called for under the applicable regulations must be compiled.
   Possible examples include the EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC or the USEPA "2002 Integrated Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report Guidance" (November 19, 2001), to encourage integration and consistency in the development and submission of water quality reports.

9. Programmatic Evaluation
   Periodic reviews of each aspect of the monitoring program should be3 conducted to determine how well the program serves its water quality decision needs for all waters, including all waterbody types. This should involve evaluating the monitoring program to determine how well each of the elements is addressed and determining how needed changes and additions are incorporated into future monitoring cycles.

10. General Support and Infrastructure Planning
    Current and future resource needs must be identified to fully implement the monitoring program strategy. This needs assessment should describe funding, staff, training, laboratory resources, and upcoming improvements, including any international commitments for data exchange and reporting.