The Role and Design of Water Quality Monitoring on Forested Watersheds

Proceedings of the 1993 Georgia Water Resources Conference, April 20-21, 1993, Athens, Georgia.While many point sources of pollution have been ameliorated over the last twenty years, nonpoint sources (NPSs) of pollution remain a serious threat to the nation's water quality (Reilly, 1991). On a national scale, silvi-culture is one of the leading causes of NPS pollution, and has been identified as a localized problem in the Southeast (Myers, et al., 1985). Because forested watersheds often possess the nation's best quality waters, NPS control programs for protecting these waters must be undertaken. In this paper, a conceptual framework is established that shows the complex interrelationships between management mechanisms, investigation methods, and criteria and assessment methodologies for silvicultural NPS pollution control. The role and definition of water quality monitoring for the operation of this management framework is discussed, and the fundamental components related to the design of water quality monitoring programs are discussed. The monitoring programs include monitoring objectives, sampling stations and frequency, and environmental parameters. It should be emphasized that there does not currently exist a technical guide for forest water quality monitoring in the Southeast. It is the intent of this paper, therefore, to draw upon monitoring guidelines developed for other regions, and to clarify the role of water quality monitoring and to propose general design guidelines for implementing forest water quality monitoring programs in the Southeast.Sponsored and Organized by: U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of TechnologyThis book was published by the Institute of Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 with partial funding provided by the U.S. Department of Interior, Geological Survey, through the Georgia Water Research Institute as authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1984 (P.L. 98-242). The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of the University of Georgia or the U.S. Geological Survey or the conference sponsors