Designing pollution prevention or remediation programs

Photo of a volunteer at a river clean up

Photo of people considering an old bridge.

Monitoring can be a key element in designing and implementing a pollution prevention or remediation program. This can support a risk assessment where monitoring data are used to identify sources and types of pollution in a watershed and evaluate the likelihood of adverse effects. Monitoring information can also be used to select the best remediation techniques, to prioritize efforts, and to track remedial actions before, during and after their execution.


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Common Monitoring Objectives

Water Quality Monitoring Objectives

To properly manage a water resource, you need to know all about the water body and the watershed it drains. Watershed monitoring is a major part of the process for collecting this information and is therefore an essential component to water quality assessment and to watershed management. The information collected can support sound decision-making by identifying high quality waters and tracking their condition over time, by providing clues to the sources and levels of pollution for waters that are impaired or threatened, by helping managers understand the impacts of human activities within the watershed, and by providing input data used in water quality models. So without crucial monitoring data, we might not know exactly where a pollution problem exists, where we need to focus our watershed management energies, or where we may have made progress. Water quality monitoring programs are designed to serve many purposes.

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Section 4 of 19