Abstract |
From May through September of 2001, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) will monitor water quality of the Delaware River and tributaries located between the Delaware Water Gap and Trenton, NJ. The mission of the Lower Delaware Monitoring Program is to obtain environmental data that: expands and augments baseline water quality, physical, and biological data collection efforts of various federal, state, local, and citizen monitoring agencies; allows statistical definition of existing water quality within five years, so that criteria may be established for development of an anti-degradation protection strategy for the Lower Delaware River corridor; enables reporting of water quality status and trends, biological response to natural and anthropogenic stressors, quantitative long and short-term changes to channel morphology of the river and its tributaries, and identification of key factors controlling maintenance and improvement of the ecological integrity of the river; supports determination of abatement priorities for point and non-point sources of pollution; allows prioritization of tributaries for monitoring and watershed planning purposes; expands ecological knowledge of the Lower Non-Tidal Delaware River; and helps to safeguard the health and safety of the river-using public. |