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Water clarity is instrumental in determining the health of the Chesapeake Bay, and has an unquantifiable impact. For one, aquatic organisms rely on light for photosynthesis, especially at depths. When light is limited, food chains are affected from the bottom-up. In addition, some fauna rely on light to see prey and navigate.
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Like water temperature and dissolved oxygen concentration, pH is an essential parameter in assessing habitat suitability for aquatic life. This is because pH determines the solubility and availability of nutrients and minerals for the survival of a species.
We ask a lot of our water quality monitoring volunteers, and we want to extend a huge thank you to all of our volunteers who have stuck with us as we have navigated the past few years. We couldn’t do this important work to help restore the Chesapeake Bay and our waterways without you!
Our Water Quality Monitoring Initiative works to provide technical expertise, training, and resources in order to engage diverse partners to collect and share water quality data.
In the last three years working at Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, I’ve found work that allows me to coordinate some of those programs and resources that will enable people to be more informed about the health of their local waterways. I train community members to collect baseline water quality data within the Chesapeake Bay to look at long-term water quality trends. My journey with whitewater recreation and water quality are deeply intertwined, and I look forward to continuing to promote Chesapeake Bay stewardship and river safety in my circles and beyond.
Kerry and Dave enjoy visiting their monitoring sites year-round and getting to see the seasonal changes. They would encourage others to get involved in monitoring because collective efforts like RiverTrends will help us as a society understand trends and impacts within the Chesapeake Bay watershed that impact us all.
Meet Jack and Carol Kauffman, new residents of the Middle Peninsula of Virginia after moving from their longtime Pennsylvania homes in Montgomery and Berks Counties in 2018. Jack, a retired drug discovery scientist, and Carol, a retired teacher, chose their new home along Bland Creek, a tributary of the York River, because of the access is provided to water and nature. Soon after their move, they became involved with the Friends of the Dragon Run conservation group and met the members of the Virginia Master Naturalists, inspiring them to join the Middle Peninsula Master Naturalists chapter. Through this training, they were introduced to the RiverTrends monitoring project with Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.
Meet Imogene Treble, a volunteer water quality monitor with the RiverTrends program since February of 2019. Imogene is a retired chemist from New Jersey who moved to Spotsylvania, Virginia to spend more time with her grandchildren. Soon after settling in Virginia, she learned about the Master Naturalist program, completed her training in 2016, and has …
Catherine Unger (she/her/hers) spent January 2021 as an intern with the Alliance’s Water Quality Monitoring Team where she learned how to use water quality monitoring equipment and developed a GIS Story Map to illustrate water quality data trends.
Volunteer citizen scientists have been monitoring water quality as part of the RiverTrends project for over 35 years. Each month, monitors gear up to collect observational data and measure the trends of their local streams, including air and water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, bacteria, and salinity. These dedicated monitors give us a direct connection …
