National Estuarine Research Reserve System-Wide Water Quality Monitoring Program

Water quality monitoring is conducted, for all 22 National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) sites, at two locations within or adjacent to the Reserve. These two locations monitor a reference non-impacted site (baseline condition) and a non-point source pollution site. The following parameters are measured at least every 30 minutes: water temperature, conductivity, salinity, dissolved oxygen (percent saturation and concentration mg/L), pH, turbidity, and water depth. All water quality data loggers (YSI's) are deployed from a known depth from the bottom at each site.

The National Estuarine Research Reserve data is collected to fulfill two major goals: to support state-specific non-point source pollution control programs by establishing local networks of continuous water quality monitoring stations in representative protected estuarine ecosystems; and to develop a nationwide database on baseline environmental conditions in the NERR system of estuaries.

The System-wide Monitoring Program seeks to &identify and track short-term variability and long-term changes in the integrity and biodiversity of representative estuarine ecosystems and coastal watersheds for the purposes of contributing to effective national, regional, and site specific coastal zone management&. This comprehensive program consists of three phased components: (1) abiotic factors (i.e. water quality & meteorological monitoring), (2) biodiversity monitoring, and (3) land use planning analysis. With the initial focus on phase (1), the NERR System-wide Monitoring Program will provide data necessary for site and inter-site baseline studies, trend analyses and impact assessment.

See individual National Estuarine Research Reserve sites for citation, time period of content, geographic descriptions, experimental design: ACE Basin, South Carolina; Apalachicola Bay, Florida; Chesapeake Bay, Maryland; Chesapeake Bay, Virginia; Delaware NERR, Delaware; Elkhorn Slough, California; Great Bay, New Hampshire; Hudson River, New York; Jobos Bay, Puerto Rico; Jacques Cousteau/Mullica River, New Jersey; Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island; North Inlet-Winyah Bay, South Carolina; North Carolina NERR, North Carolina; Old Woman Creek, Ohio; Padilla Bay, Washington; Rookery Bay, Florida; Sapelo Island, Georgia; South Slough, Oregon; Tijuana River, California; Wells, Maine; Weeks Bay, Alabama; Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts.

Information for this metadata was taken from the Water Quality Data Dissemination Page and individual site pages which can be accessed at - http://cdmo.baruch.sc.edu