Inland Water Monitoring

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• Aquatic Life Impacts of Phosphorus Research

  The CT DEEP Monitoring Group is engaged in several efforts to study the effects of phosphorus in water bodies. This webpage provides information on the monitoring efforts, results and analysis conducted by the Monitoring Program. These efforts include recommendations by the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering report ‘Methods to Measure Phosphorus and Make Future Projections’ developed as part of Public Act 12-155, An Act Concerning Phosphorus Reductions in State Waters.

• Water Quality Monitoring Program Overview

  The DEEP Water Monitoring Group conducts annual water quality monitoring to evaluate the physical, chemical and biological condition of the State’s waters. Group staff collect a wide variety and large quantity of information each year, including water chemistry data, water temperature data, bacteria data, biological community data (fish, macroinvertebrates, diatoms) and tissue contaminant data.

• Connecticut Healthy Waters Initiative

  For several decades, the DEEP Monitoring Group has been building multidisciplinary datasets that include water chemistry data, physical habitat assessments, and biological information. The primary purpose for these data is to support water quality assessments. In addition, through multiple partnerships, the Monitoring Group is using these data to improve our understanding of healthy waters in Connecticut

• Volunteer Water Monitoring Program Overview

  CT DEEP encourages groups and individuals interested in helping to conserve and protect our water resources to become volunteer water monitors. The Volunteer Water Monitoring Program utilizes a three-tiered approach to volunteer water quality monitoring, which is also increasingly referred to as 'citizen science' or 'community science'. The three-tiered approach allows for participation by volunteers having a wide range of skills and interest levels.

• Water Monitoring Data Availability

  The DEEP Water Monitoring Group collects a large volume of data, statewide, each year. Data that have gone through the Agency's quality assurance and quality control (QAQC) review process are made publicly available through the following online databases.

• 2019 CT Volunteer Water Monitoring Conference

  The 2019 Volunteer Water Monitoring Conference was held on April 5, 2019 at Three Rivers Community College in Norwich, CT. The conference was organized by the CT DEEP in collaboration with partners, and marked the 20 year anniversary of the DEEP Volunteer Water Monitoring Program. The event featured five concurrent oral presentation sessions and workshops as well as a student poster session. More than 100 volunteer water monitoring groups from across Connecticut were represented.

• Lake Water Quality Monitoring

  The DEEP Water Monitoring Program conducts ambient monitoring and the related assessment of the State’s waters, including Connecticut's many lakes and ponds. In Connecticut, there are a total of 2,267 lakes and ponds greater than 10 acres in size. The Monitoring Program conducts annual monitoring on approximately 10-20 of these. The type and locations of monitoring during a given year is determined by a variety of factors including participation in regional and national studies as well as support requests from groups within DEEP.

• River and Stream Water Monitoring

  DEEP has monitored rivers and streams for water quality since the 1970s. Current annual monitoring efforts include the collection of water chemistry, water temperature, macroinvertebrate community, fish community, periphyton community, and indicator bacteria data from locations throughout the State. This data collected by the Monitoring Program are used to assess the health of individual waterbodies. In addition, the data are used to support a variety of other projects, including evaluation of trends in Connecticut’s water quality in the state, study of the potential impacts of climate change on our waterbodies, and supporting nutrient and temperature criteria development.

• Fish Tissue Contaminant Monitoring

  Monitoring of toxic contaminants in tissues of fish and invertebrates has been conducted by DEEP in partnership with the CT Department of Public Health (DPH) since the late 1970s. Efforts have historically included analysis of levels of mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). More recent work has sought to study new contaminants of emerging concern, such as per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS).

• Ambient Benthic Macroinvertebrate Monitoring

  The DEEP Water Monitoring Group has used benthic macroinvertebrate communities to help characterize stream and river water quality since the mid-1970s. Benthic macroinvertebrates are animals without backbones, who inhabit the bottom of rivers and streams, as well as many other waterbody types. These organisms are very well studied and have a long history of use as indicators of water quality. Certain types, including mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies, can survive only in the cleanest water quality conditions. Other major groups of macroinvertebrates are true flies, beetles, worms, crustaceans, and dragonflies.

• Cold Water Stream Habitat Map

  Cold Water Stream Habitat Map

• Stressor Identification and Causal Assessment Work

  Stressor identification involves defining and listing possible sources of pollution, evaluating existing data, designing a sampling program to bracket the sources if additional data are needed, characterizing the causes, and, finally, identifying the most probable cause.

• 2014 Volunteer Water Monitoring Conference

  The 2014 Volunteer Water Monitoring Conference was held on July 25, 2014 at Goodwin College in East Hartford, CT. The conference was the first such conference to be organized by the CT DEEP to celebrate volunteer water monitoring in Connecticut. More than 100 individuals attended representing individual volunteers (citizen scientists), watershed group leaders, municipal commissioners, college and university professors, state and federal scientists, students, and representatives from the environmental consulting industry. In total more than 40 volunteer monitoring groups were represented at the conference!

• Ambient Diatom Community Monitoring Project

• Beach Monitoring

  The CT DEEP Water Monitoring and Assessment Unit conducts weekly bathing water sampling at 22 state-owned and managed swimming areas.