National Water Quality

Monitoring Council (NWQMC)

Informationhttp://acwi.gov/monitoring/

Leslie McGeorge, NWQMC Region 2 Representative

NJDEP – DWM&S/Bureau of Freshwater & Biological

Monitoring

January 19, 2017

National Water Quality Monitoring Council

Co-Chairs: EPA and USGS

Goal: Champion sound water quality information development &

use for natural resources management & environmental protection

Objectives:

- Stimulate monitoring improvements for comparable, scientifically

defensible information on water quality

- Through coordination, collaboration, & communication form

monitoring partnerships at the national, tribal, regional, state &

watershed levels

http://acwi.gov/monitoring/

Overview*• National Water Quality Portal (WQP)

– NJ Training (flyer)

– New Features

• Nutrient Data Exchange

– USGS Nutrient Metadata Project

– EPA WQX/STORET Nutrient Data Review

• California Water Monitoring Council HABs Portal

• Key 2017 NWQMC Priorities

* Draft Minutes from Nov 29- Dec 1, 2016 NWQMC Meeting - handout

National Water Quality Portal

• NWQMC, EPA & USGS tool – integrates NWIS, STORET & STEWARDS

data

• Contributors - federal, state, tribes, territories, watershed groups &

academics

• Types – physical/chemical, biological, habitat, metrics & indices (coming

soon)

• Data provided in multiple formats – excel, tab or comma separated, KML &

WQX

• FY17 focus – additional data partners & sources, Metadata, videos,

tutorials, training

http://waterqualitydata.us

National Water Quality PortalNJ Training Opportunity*

• Dwane Young – EPA HQ

• February 8, 9:30am-12:00pm – DEP HQ– Snow date – March 13

• Focus – portal overview, search features, new

tools, continuous data

* See flyer

New and coming soon to the

Portal• Upstream/downstream tracing

• Integration across multiple water programs

• Additional open source tools (Data

Analysis Tool)

• Integration with sensor data

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Dwane Young, EPA HQ

USGS Nutrient Metadata Study

From final USGS publication (Lori Sprague) available at::

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043135416309642.

• USGS study of >25M nutrient records collected by 488

organizations since 1899

• Id’d inconsistencies in metadata

• Different organizations often use different methods for reporting

same metadata elements

• Also may be missing or ambiguous information for 1 or more key

metadata elements (e.g. fraction, chemical form, parameter

name, units of measurement)

• Metadata harmonization necessary for secondary use to avoid

different assumptions/conclusions

EPA WQX/STORET Nutrient Data Review

Nutrient Data in the Portal

▪ Over 33 million results for over 500K stations

▪ WQX/STORET contribute 19.5 million ~59%

▪ In the past 3 years, Phosphorus is the most commonly reported characteristic, followed by Kjeldahl Nitrogen, Inorganic nitrogen, Orthophosphate, and Ammonia

Laura Shumway, EPA HQ

The Data Ambiguities for

secondary users▪ “Total” is being used in WQX to represent the sum of all forms and an unfiltered

sample

➢ In the last 3 years “Total” is the most commonly reported sample fraction for nutrients representing ~2 million of the ~2.5 million reported sample fractions.

▪ Synonymous Characteristics

➢ 5 different ways to capture “Total Nitrogen” (sum of all forms nitrogen)

▪ Incomplete nutrient records

➢ ~30% of nutrients captured in the last 3 years are missing an essential metadata element needed to use the record for analyses

➢ *Complete record contains: Characteristic name, sample fraction, method speciation, result value and unit, & analytical method

▪ Invalid characteristic/analytical method combinations

▪ Censored data not captured correctly

➢ This is a product of users “getting around the rules” and submitting data with a “<“, “>” or some other character. When a user submits a “< 0.2” in the result value, they are not required to provide a detection limit type.

Laura Shumway, EPA HQ

Best Practices

Excerpted from Laura Shumway, EPA HQ

1. Correctly documenting censored data

2. Consistent use of naming characteristics

3. Documenting method speciation and sample

fraction

4. Correctly documenting a complete nutrient

record

___________________________________

List of proposed changes to be released as part of

EPA WQX 3.0

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Jon Marshack, CA WQ Monitoring Council

CA Water Quality Portal

www.mywaterquality.ca.gov

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Jon Marshack, CA WQ Monitoring Council

Key 2017 NWQMC Priorities Include:

• Water Quality Portal• Increasing data submissions from multiple organizations

• Data Quality – Metadata focus

• Certification Program for WQ Monitoring

Professionals

• Water Quality Standards (new area)• Survey of existing WQS

• Focus on WQS issues related to monitoring

• Evaluating Council Progress in meeting its

Goals

• Volunteer Monitoring