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WATER QUALITY ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY (WQAM)
Description:
The Water Quality Assessment Methodology (WQAM) is a screening procedure for toxic and conventional pollutants in surface and ground waters and is a collection of formulas, tables, and graphs that planners can use for preliminary assessment of surface and ground water quality in large river basins. These desktop procedures are appropriate for hand calculators or for implementation as spreadsheet calculations on personal computers. The manual includes a discussion of the environmental chemistry of synthetic organic chemicals and metals; a chapter on waste source estimation techniques; and simple methods for assessment of pollutant fate in rivers, lakes, estuaries and ground water. Stream analysis techniques are included for conservative substances, water temperature, biochemical oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, total suspended solids, coliform bacteria, nutrients, and toxic organic chemicals and metals. Lake analysis procedures include thermal stratification, sediment accumulation, toxic organic chemicals, phosphorus budget, eutrophication potential, and hypolimnion dissolved oxygen. Estuarine analyses include estuarine classification, temperature, biochemical oxygen demand, and dissolved substances. Ground water procedures include aquifer characterization, the groundwater flow regime, pollutant transport processes, methods for predicting the fate and transport of conventional and toxic pollutants, and interpretation of results.
