LARGE RIVERS AND WADEABLE STREAMS: NATIONAL PARK SERVICE WATER QUALITY MONITORING PROTOCOLS

Suzanne Magdalene, St. Croix Watershed Research Station
Daniel Engstrom, St. Croix Watershed Research Station
Joan Elias, National Park Service

The National Park Service (NPS) Great Lakes Network (GLKN) is developing water quality monitoring protocols for large rivers and for wadeable streams. The GLKN large rivers water quality protocol, near completion, will include the St. Croix National Wild and Scenic Riverway and the Mississippi National River and Recreational Area. The wadeable streams protocol, in development, will include six other GLKN parks. The large river parks are under increasing pressures from agricultural and urban development, therefore monitoring focuses on flow, sediments, and nutrients. In contrast to large river systems, wadeable streams tend to have more dynamic streamflow and more variable water chemistry. Adequately tracking water quality trends in smaller streams may require monitoring a water quality parameter that integrates the effects of several physical and chemical parameters. Therefore, we expect to incorporate biotic indicators that do not require a high degree of taxonomic expertise, such as the Hilsenhoff index, which is based on the Family-level identification.