Citizen Stream Monitoring Pilot Project

G-E-T High School students sampling data. Photo: Jon Johnson

Putting Citizen-Collected River Data to Work

Good water quality data is essential to the protection of waterways. You can’t determine how to best protect or improve a waterway without knowing its condition and what it’s capable of supporting in terms of fish and other aquatic life. Unfortunately, more than half of the many rivers and streams in our state have not been sampled and assessed. As a result, adequate protections may not be in place for some rivers.

For the past several years we’ve been pushing the DNR to use stream data collected by citizens to supplement their database and to ensure the right river management decisions are made. In the fall of 2005 we began a joint project with the DNR and UW-Extension with the intent of better understanding why DNR has been hesitant to use citizen-gathered data, and to find ways to overcome their concerns. We learned that DNR’s protocols for stream monitoring are much more rigorous than the methods used by most citizen stream monitors, so the project examined how well citizens can learn and use DNR’s methods.

Citizen Monitors from the Upper Sugar River Watershed Association" train for stream monitoring.

In 2006 and 2007, fifteen local river groups from throughout the state were trained to collect water quality data in the same way and using the same equipment as DNR, and their data was input directly into DNR’s database. Project information and the final report, which lays out successes, reviews lessons learned, and recommends ways to expand the pilot project, are available on the Citizen Based Monitoring Network Web site.

In 2008, we are continuing with the project, reshaping the Citizen Stream Monitoring Program, and putting the pieces in place to build towards a statewide monitoring program that will lead to river classification and protection.