1 / 17

NC Division of Water Quality Chemical and Biological Assessments

NC Division of Water Quality Chemical and Biological Assessments. Permits Impaired stream segment Biological monitoring stations Ambient monitoring stations. 303 (d). Types of Water Quality Assessments Used by DWQ. Chemical monitoring (includes field measurements) Biological monitoring

ria-davidson
Download Presentation

NC Division of Water Quality Chemical and Biological Assessments

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. NC Division of Water Quality Chemical and Biological Assessments

  2. Permits • Impaired stream segment • Biological monitoring stations • Ambient monitoring stations 303 (d)

  3. Types of Water Quality Assessments Used by DWQ • Chemical monitoring (includes field measurements) • Biological monitoring • Habitat assessments • Wetland Functional Assessments (new in 2008)

  4. Quantitative Can pinpoint locations of problems Identify the specific nature of problems Expensive Requires many samples to characterize pollutant effects in a watershed A sample represents only a single point in time Why Use Chemical Monitoring? Benefits Limitations

  5. Types of Measurements • Field – Dissolved Oxygen, pH, specific conductance, water temperature • Nutrients – Nitrogen and phosphorous • Solids (e.g. total suspended solids • Turbidity • Metals

  6. Aquatic organisms found in all habitats Easily and inexpensively collected Integrates the effect of mixtures of pollutants over the life cycle of the organism Semi-quantitative Does not identify the source of pollution or the specific pollutants Seasonality & taxonomic inconsistencies Why Conduct Biological Monitoring? Benefits Limitations

  7. Benthic Macroinvertebrates • Benthic- The community of organisms living in or on the bottom or other substrate in an aquatic environment • Macro - Large enough to be seen by the unaided eye and which can be retained by a U.S. standard no. 30 seive (0.6 mm openings) • Invertebrate - animals without backbones

  8. Benthic MacroinvertebratesInclude E Mayfly • Ephemeroptera - Mayflies • Plecoptera - Stoneflies • Trichoptera - Caddisflies • Odonata - Damsel and Dragonflies • Coleoptera - Beetles • Megaloptera - Dobson and Alderflies • Diptera - True Flies • Oligochaeta - Aquatic Worms • Crustacea - Crayfish, Amphipods, Isopods • Mollusca - Snails and Clams P Stonefly T Caddisfly

  9. P T E

  10. Unimpacted Site- greater diversity and number of individuals

  11. Assigning BioclassificationsUsing Macroinvertebrates • Taxa Richness (number of species) • Total number of species • Total number of EPT species • Biotic Index (uses a species’ tolerance to pollution and measures of species abundances) • Species are assigned a “tolerance value” (range 0 to 10) • A Biotic Index (BI; range 0 to 10) is a weighted average of the “abundance” and “tolerance value” • Higher BI values indicate poorer conditions (i.e., more tolerant species present)

  12. Benthos Data for Indian Creek @ SR 1252

  13. NC Division of Water Quality Tom Yocum (336) 771-4953 Steven Kroeger (919) 733-9726 Stratford Kay (919) 733 -9716 Contact Information:

More Related