About Water Monitoring
There are a couple of ways to monitor the impacts of pollution on a stream. Chemical monitoring and biological monitoring are most commonly used.While all of these methods are important, Virginia Save Our Streams focuses on biological and physical measures of a stream. Why? Because they are cost and time effective and with proper training, citizen monitors can easily make these measures. Click the links in the learn more box for more information about our methods!
Chemical monitoring is a snapshot in time of certain parameters in a water sample. The amounts of these parameters are usually compared to a water quality standard and a determination of stream degradation is made based upon the comparison. This process usually involves a lab, so it is costly and time consuming.
Biological Monitoring or biomonitoring evaluates the presence, absence, and abundance of certain organisms in the stream. This type of monitoring gives an overall assessment of the health of the stream based upon the ecological conditions of the stream (what critters are making the stream their home).
Some people also make physical measures of stream health. This includes measuring flow, conducting pebble counts, and performing habitat evaluations. Measures of flow can help determine the amount of pollution that can be safely assimilated into a stream and can also tell you the amount of flow needed to sustain populations of aquatic insects. Pebble counts provide information about sediment inputs into a stream. Habitat monitoring can evaluate the instream habitat for populations of aquatic organisms while near stream habitat can provide information about the impact of local land use on a stream.