Universities across the nation are involved in educational programs and research that use data collected through volunteer water quality monitoring.

Information on this page will provide you with a general overview of such activities, and whenever possible will provide you with links or contact information for those most intimately involved with these projects so that you can learn more about them.

We'll be adding to the information provided on this page as we learn about programs and research, so please let us know if you know of or are involved with research or educational efforts related to volunteer water quality monitoring.

Lake Monitoring and GIS Mapping

In a study by the University of New Hampshire, Watershed Natural Resources Inventories (WNRIs) were produced by integrating Geographic Information System mapping and analyses with information from volunteer monitoring and natural resources inventories by stakeholder groups, as well as information from multi-agency collaborations. These WNRIs are used for watershed planning and pollution prevention. They found in creating these WNRIs that GIS is a valuable tool for disseminating information and communicating with the public. They also found that high tech analyses are necessary to understanding the picture of what is happening in a watershed, but education and outreach within the community which simplfy technical information have wider utility than do high tech analyses. For more information about this project, contact Jeff Schloss; jeff.schloss@unh.edu.