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Water Quality Monitoring Design

(1.5 ceu)

Review the planning of a typical water quality monitoring project and understand the major tasks associated with creating a scientifically defensible monitoring design. You learn about hypothesis testing and its application to trend monitoring and regulatory decision making, and learn how to evaluate the effectiveness of management measures implemented to reduce pollution. You also briefly review quality assurance related to generating reliable data. You also examine the major points to consider when selecting data-capture, storage, and management tools for a project.

Course Objectives

Teach basic concepts in data quality and monitoring design, provide tools and resources to assist you with the planning of a sound monitoring project, and enhance your ability to integrate quality assurance and data management into the design.

Intended Audience

Managers of water quality improvement grant projects, grant Project directors and technical leaders, contractors, or others who are responsible for developing and implementing a scientifically defensible water quality monitoring effort. You are expected to have some technical background (preferably in biology, ecology, and/or chemistry), understanding of processes that affect water quality, and understanding of a watershed as a functional drainage unit.

Targeted Skills

Find guidance materials, tools, and other resources that can support work on a specific project needs; communicate with technical experts effectively to design a monitoring study which will yield useable and reliable data; and develop a monitoring plan that communicates all aspects of the project.

Course Topics

The Big Picture: The Monitoring Framework developed by the National Water Quality Monitoring Council (NWQMC).
The Framework, its historical context, and its components is discussed, including the relationship between the overall goal, the six major steps of the monitoring effort (monitoring objective, sampling design, data collection, data management, data interpretation, and reports), and the three overarching concepts of collaboration, communication, coordination. This topic also introduces the groups developed by NWQMC, including the Method and Data Comparability Board and its National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI) and Water Quality Data Elements (WQDE) workgroups.

Planning for good data
This interactive discussion compiles and examines different aspects of data quality, including data usability, reliability, validity, and measurement quality. Additional course items elaborate on the concept of representativeness and on the different aspects of data comparability, i.e. on the real meaning behind "comparable with Program X" (e.g., "comparable with SWAMP").

Introduction to scientific measurements
This question-and-answer sequence proceeds while several participants perform simple hands-on activities that trigger discussion of the sources of measurement error, measurement precision and accuracy, as well as resolution, detection limit, and other aspects of data quality.

Tasks and roles in a typical monitoring project
This presentation breaks the entire monitoring process into a rational sequence of manageable tasks, and highlights the complementary roles of project personnel (e.g., the Field Operator, Technical Leader, etc.). It includes a brief review of the major steps and functions and provides examples of actions done at each step.

A systematic planning tool: The Measurement Core Loop
This presentation introduces a systematic planning tool for environmental sample collection and analysis efforts when one is dealing with multiple study questions and ensuing lines of inquiry. The five steps for each line of inquiry will be discussed.
A tool for tailoring monitoring design to study intent (Group Exercise)
This activity will be introduced in a short presentation about sampling design approaches (i.e., probabilistic, deterministic, or non-deliberate) and about tailoring the design to address the study question (i.e., the monitoring intent). After the presentation, several small groups of participants will be given a case study (or bring your own) and use templates to communicate the intent and the design the group recommends for that case. The class will re-convene for group summaries.

Statistical power of the dataset
This presentation highlights how the concepts of hypothesis testing are applied to statistical comparisons done with monitoring data for trend analysis, regulatory decision making, and evaluation of the effectiveness of management measures implemented to reduce pollution. Topics include the four variables (power, confidence level, minimum detectable difference, and # of observations) as applied to different monitoring needs, and the impact of variability.

Quality Assurance demystified (Group Activity)
You will assume separate roles and interact with others in the group during a simulation of the data quality process. Topics include actions to assure and check measurement quality and actions to record and report it.

Project logistics & planning documents
This section demonstrates how the products of labor and budget spreadsheet tools and the components prepared earlier in the course are compiled to generate the project's planning documents, Monitoring Project Plan and Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP).

Managing data for validation, retrieval, interpretation, and presentation
This presentation provides a review of the data quality management process and briefly discusses the four major function of a data management system, the relationship between project planning and the ultimate use of the data, and the tools being created for data sharing within state and national data exchange networks.

Note: You will receive the course reader (binder) and CD-ROM, as well as the SWAMP Field Methods distance learning course CD-ROM, free of charge.

This course will be followed with the supplementary course Hands-On Planning for Environmental Monitoring to provide further hands-on experience in the use of a variety of project planning tools (same instructor, separate enrollment).

There are currently no sections open for enrollment.




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Tues. Aug. 18, Berkeley

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