Sponsored Research

Grant Award Year: 2015-2016

Principal Investigator: 

Jerry Schoen, Water Resources Research Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Research Description: 

Since the early 1990s, the Massachusetts Water Watch Partnership (WWP) web site has been a valuable source of information for nonprofit organizations, environmental agencies, schools and others practicing or working with citizen science programs. The WWP site contained information on how to organize and design a monitoring program, what sampling parameters and associated methods to use, data management and presentation strategies, and quality assurance practices that can help ensure a successful program. Collectively, these materials helped over 100 organizations in Massachusetts, the Northeast and beyond conduct water quality monitoring programs that aided in resource management decisions by federal, state, local government agencies and program managers. These programs improved public understanding of the value and condition our surface water resources. The WWP site was taken offline in 2012, due to a lack of resources with which to maintain the site. This project updated and re-published the website, now available at http://www.umass.edu/mwwp/

Report

Problem and Research Objectives:

Since the early 1990s, the Massachusetts Water Watch Partnership (WWP) web site has been a valuable source of information for nonprofit organizations, environmental agencies, schools and others practicing or working with citizen science programs. The WWP site contained information on how to organize and design a monitoring program, what sampling parameters and associated methods to use, data management and presentation strategies, and quality assurance practices that can help ensure a successful program. Collectively, these materials helped over 100 organizations in Massachusetts, the Northeast and beyond conduct water quality monitoring programs that aided in resource management decisions by federal, state, local government agencies and program managers. These programs improved public understanding of the value and condition our surface water resources. The WWP site was taken offline in 2012, due to a lack of resources with which to maintain the site. However, in the years since, the Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) has received numerous communications from these same stakeholders, expressing concern over the unavailability of the site, and requesting its return. In response to these concerns, WRRC staff updated the WWP web site and brought it back on line, under the umbrella of the WRRC web site.

Methodology:

WRRC staff conducted a detailed review of the existing, archived WWP site to determine which material from the archived site to transport to the new site in original or updated form. The new site now provides content in these topical areas:

  • Sampling program design and organization;
  • Sampling parameters, field and laboratory monitoring protocols and standard operating procedures;
  • Guidance documents on quality assurance project plans (QAPPs), data management, and reporting results;
  • Links to environmental agencies, organizations and other resources of value to volunteer monitoring groups;
  • Lists of sampling equipment commonly used by volunteer water monitoring programs, and suppliers for this equipment.

Principal Findings and Significance

The project went well, all tasks completed. The web site can be found here: http://www. umass. edu/mwwp/index. html

Beth Armour of UMass Extension and UMass student Grayson Kempster provided invaluable assistance in these tasks, by offering guidelines on site format and navigation (to ensure the site is consistent with other sites maintained by the College of Natural Sciences), and writing much of the code that translated WRRC-provided content into web format. The site was constructed to be mobile-friendly; i.e. it can be viewed on handheld devices