Alliance Citizen Monitoring Database

The Alliance Citizen Monitoring program is a regional network of more than 145 trained volunteers who perform weekly water quality tests that help track the condition of waters flowing toward the Chesapeake Bay. These dedicated volunteers monitor rivers across the Chesapeake region in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Some have worked with the Alliance for more than ten years, watching their rivers through the seasons and regularly submitting the valuable data they collect. Along with weekly tests for dissolved oxygen, pH, water clarity, and other parameters, volunteer monitors also have participated in special projects. For example, because excess nutrients are the major problem facing the Chesapeake Bay, some monitors participated in a nutrient sampling program on the Upper James, Piankatank, and York rivers in Virginia; the Conestoga River in Pennsylvania; and the Patuxent River in Maryland. In Pennsylvania, volunteers assisted in preparing an inventory of streamside forest buffers in the Conodoguinet Creek watershed.