Citizen science for water quality is widespread because there are many accessible tests and simple protocols communities can implement to participate in environmental monitoring actively. While citizen scientists often use tier 1 or 2 water quality tools, in some circumstances, they also collect samples for tier 3 monitoring; it will depend on your monitoring purpose, the skills of your volunteers, and your financial resources.
Commonly monitored parameters
Citizen science typically focuses on water chemistry parameters that are both easy to measure and indicative of water health:
- Temperature: Influences many other water quality parameters; high temperatures (over 20°C) often cause stress to fish, and warmer water holds less oxygen
- Conductivity: A general indicator of water purity, high conductivity indicates the presence of dissolved salts or pollutants
- Total Dissolved Solids: These are usually calculated from conductivity but expressed as mg/L or ppm. Often, this is done within a probe or meter. Gives the same information as conductivity.
- Nutrients (e.g. nitrate, phosphate and ammonia): High levels can lead to harmful algal blooms and are usually an indication of pollution, typically from wastewater or farm runoff.
- Dissolved oxygen (DO): Essential for fish and aquatic organisms, varies throughout the day and high or low extremes can indicate eutrophication.
- Turbidity: A measure of optical water clarity, high turbidity is usually an indication of suspended sediment or pollution.
- pH: A measure of the acidity of river water, rivers are naturally close to neutral pH – usually between 6 and 8. High or low pH can be an indication of pollution and can be very harmful to aquatic life.
This is not a comprehensive list. A “Long List” of water chemistry tests based on parameters is under review and will be published here.
Water chemistry methods audit
The first parameter to be reviewed is phosphorus. We audited the Hanna Checker – Low Range test for phosphate.