Monitoring and Assessing Water Quality - Volunteer Monitoring

Across the country, trained volunteers are monitoring the condition of their local streams, lakes, estuaries and wetlands. EPA encourages all citizens to learn about their water resources and supports volunteer monitoring because of its many benefits. Volunteer water monitors build community awareness of pollution problems, help identify and restore problem sites, become advocates for their watersheds and increase the amount of needed water quality information available on our waters.

Fact sheets

• Starting Out in Volunteer Water Monitoring (PDF) (4 pp, 256K, About PDF) describes the process of starting out in volunteer monitoring.
• EPA's Volunteer Monitoring Program describes EPA's support for volunteer monitoring, including a list of EPA volunteer monitoring documents.
• Dip Into Volunteer Monitoring (PDF) (2 pp, 354K, About PDF) describes the annual Great North American Secchi Dip In, an international volunteer monitoring event

Directory of Volunteer Monitoring Programs/Where You Live

• National Directory of Volunteer Environmental Monitoring Programs (database) – search this database to find volunteer monitoring programs where you live.
• Introduction to the National Directory of Volunteer Environmental Monitoring Programs (5th edition, 1998) - Interprets and summarizes the findings of the national survey of volunteer monitoring programs.

National Volunteer Monitor Newsletter

• The Volunteer Monitor - Past and current issues of The Volunteer Monitor, a national newsletter published twice yearly. This project has been partially funded under cooperative agreement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of EPA, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation of use.

Listserve for Program Coordinators

• The Volmonitor Listserver connects volunteer water monitoring program coordinators nationwide by serving as an internet forum for questions, announcements, and discussion on topics of interest to the volunteer monitoring community.

Volunteer Methods Manuals

• The Volunteer Monitor's Guide to Quality Assurance Project Plans - Discusses EPA's guidance for documenting quality assurance methods, project organization, goals and objectives, with examples and references.
• Volunteer Estuary Monitoring: A Methods Manual - Methods for volunteer monitoring of estuarine waters.
• Volunteer Lake Monitoring: A Methods Manual - Methods for volunteer monitoring of lakes.
• Volunteer Stream Monitoring: A Methods Manual - Methods for volunteer monitoring of streams.
• Volunteer Wetland Monitoring: An Introduction and Resource Guide - Describes a selection of handbooks and manuals that offer detailed information on volunteer wetland monitoring.

Conferences/Events

• 2010 Seventh National Monitoring Conference
• World Water Monitoring Day/Celebrate Monitoring Month
• Sixth National Monitoring Conference - Proceedings
• Proceedings - Sixth National Volunteer Monitoring Conference - Moving Into the Mainstream - April 26 - 29, 2000, Austin, Texas.
• Proceedings (PDF) (223 pp, 846K, About PDF) - Fifth National Volunteer Monitoring Conference - Promoting Watershed Stewardship - August 3-7, 1996, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Wisconsin

Related Links

• EPA Region 2 (Northeast)
• EPA Region 3 (Mid-Atlantic)
• EPA Region 5 (Mid-West)
• EPA Region 8 (Rocky Mountains)
• EPA Region 9 (Pacific Southwest)
• Volunteer Activities in Coasts and Oceans
• International Coastal Cleanup
  
• USDA CSREES Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring National Facilitation Project - Comprehensive national volunteer monitoring Web site.
• World Water Monitoring Day 
• Great American Secchi Dip In 
• Third-Party TMDL Development Tool Kit (PDF) (30 pp, 1.7MB, About PDF) 
• Volunteer Biological Monitoring: Can It Accurately Assess the Ecological Condition of Streams? (PDF) (14 pp, 731K, About PDF), Sarah R. Engel and J. Reese Voshell, Jr.. 2002. American Entomologist 48 (3): 164-177.