Factors That Scientists Look At While Collecting Data For The Health Of A Watershed

We add substances to the water – intentionally or not. As precipitation falls on the ground and moves into rivers and creeks, it picks up a whole range of pollutants. In rural areas these pollutants may include farm pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers as well as wastes from faulty septic systems and improperly handled manure. In urban areas, the pollutants may include gas, oil, pet waste, fertilizers, pesticides, salt and treated human waste from sewage treatment plants.

Think about the following statement: “Only communities located downstream in a watershed need to be concerned about how the water resources are managed in the watershed.” In my opinion, I strongly disagree with this statement. This essay will explain why even communities upstream a watershed should be concerned due to acid rain, and the risk of contaminated drinking water.

A watershed is a land area that drains rain and other water into creeks, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc.

In December 2002 the EPA Assistant Administrator for Water issued a strategy reminder entitled "Committing EPA’s Water Program to Advancing the Watershed Approach" This arrangement notice not just reaffirmed EPA's dedication to the watershed approach additionally reenergized endeavors to guarantee that EPA in general completely incorporates the watershed approach into program usage. The notice built up an EPA Watershed Management Council (WMC) to quicken endeavors to create and issue NPDES allows on a watershed premise. (NPDES, 5) Even though noteworthy water quality enhancements have been made amid the previous three decades, water quality issues remain. A large portion of the rest of the issues include complex blends of sources and effects that require coordinated, all-encompassing arrangements. As per the 2000 Clean Water Act segment 305(b) examination of the country's waters, “39 percent of surveyed waterways and streams, 51 percent of evaluated estuarine square miles, and 46 percent of evaluated lake, streams, and repository sections of land excluding the Great Lakes” (USEPA 2002c) , do not completely bolster water quality guidelines. That investigation recognizes point source discharges as one of a few driving wellsprings of weakness in surveyed lakes, waterways, and beach front assets (USEPA 2002d). Stipends given by the

This report is based upon the collected data from scientific tests and different data collection experiments, these diverse range of observations helped in determining the health of the river and catchment as a whole. The experiments tested a range of variables, some including; the levels of nitrates, phosphates, temperature of water, pH levels, turbidity of water and dissolved solids. The collection of water and recordings of microorganisms was examined and also recorded. As well as these scientific tests, simple recordings were also taken of the surrounding area and the amounts of rubbish and infrastructure that could be seen. The tests conducted in the river system occurred on the 24th of May 2016, to conduct the tests the trail along the river was walked, furthering the knowledge of the health of the river and how the the catchment area as a whole was fairing. However, some differences to the data could be assumed as when tested it was not always done by the same person, this could have then limited the accuracy. Another

The water quality of the U-High creek was excellent, but not all bodies of water have excellent water quality. Humans can pollute water by farmers putting pesticides and fertilizers on their crops. Putting fertilizers on the crops pollutes water, because when it rains the pesticides and fertilizers get washed off and carried into the water, and this adds nitrates and phosphates to the water which is called eutrophication, and it increases the amount of algae in the water. When there is an excess amount of algae in water, there is an excess amount of bacteria the uses up most of the oxygen which kills plants and animals. (River Quality and Pollution,2016) The second way humans pollute water is when it rains there is runoff, and all of the pollution on the ground get carried into the water. Runoff is when it rains the soil and other things get carried to other places. An example of runoff is when there is a heavy rain, the soil sitting on the sides of a hill loosen and slide down the hill toward the bottom causing a buildup at the bottom of the hill.

One natural way of helping stream/creek health is by not mowing the riparian zone (area around the banks of a creek). This allows the riparian zone to grow back, which helps filter storm runoff, like chemicals and trash that hurt the water quality of a stream. It also provides a habitat for many animals. It also saves money, because people/cities don’t have to mow as much. On the other hand, having a riparian zone doesn’t look as good. Also, they take up a lot of space, with one source saying it should be about 25 feet wide. (http://www.creekfreaks.net/sources-pollution-point-and-nonpoint)

This study was done to determine the health of the Humber river watershed by testing the water quality. A watershed is a geographical area that drains precipitation and water sources into the same place. Watersheds are essential in supporting ecosystems around them and are vital to both plants and animals. The results of this study could be analyzed and used as an indicator of a healthy or an impaired ecosystem.

The best way to protect local bodies of water is to give the resources necessary for professionals to analyze the patterns of the ecosystem 2. Currently, information from water testing is extremely scarce and many individuals within the government do not understand the necessity for water monitoring and watershed preservation3. Although there are various laws that work by directly protecting public health, many of these laws do not focus on protecting the entire ecosystem. Much of this negligence is a result of the economic drawbacks and regulations on human development that are required to preserve local bodies of water3. A major issue that greatly affects the entire ecosystem and watershed is climate change. The rapid changing of water parameters has caused many dangers for aquatic organisms and the surrounding environment4. To truly understand this impact, water monitoring is a necessity to preserving the ecosystem and protecting the health of all

Our report involved participation in the remaining volunteer positions for Evergreen’s program, collecting water quality data and urban watershed restoration. We compiled the data from TRCA, PWQMN and Evergreen to perform spatial analysis on sampling sites and compare data-sets on water quality parameters. Through qualitative and quantitative research, our research hoped to address the following questions;

In the Case of the University High School Creek, the water quality is excellent. However, the quality of water is not excellent in all cases. In some areas, the water is polluted, even by humans. One way that Humans can pollute water is by using certain farming chemicals (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) and putting too large amounts of these chemicals on crops. Excess chemicals can run off into the creeks, causing a buildup of nitrates in the water. (River Water Quality and Pollution, 1998) This will cause too much algae to grow, which will take up all of the dissolved oxygen in the water. This means that there will be less dissolved oxygen for organisms to breathe, causing them to die. As well as runoff, Humans can dump chemical waste into

A watershed is like a natural drainage system that allows both rain and snow to be deposited into bodies of water. Watersheds are formed in all shapes and sizes depending on the hills and ridges. One of the bigger ones in colorado is the south platte river basin. Water that falls here mostly goes into the platte river which flows through Greeley, Boulder, Fort Collins, and Longmont. Watersheds are important because without them we wouldn’t have bodies of water scattered around the world which we use for many different things including agricultural use, recreational use. We don’t know it but without watersheds we would be struggling to get a good source of water. We must do something to help out theses watersheds for all the work they do

A watershed is the big pool of water that a certain region gets is source of water from. This can include ponds, rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water. The watershed is shared between humans and wildlife. We get all of our water from it, which includes anything from drinking water to the water we shower and bathe in. The watershed that we live in is the Cache la Poudre River watershed. This watershed “produces approximately 274,000 acres of water” (Northern Water). That is enough to provide for three major cities: Windsor, Fort Collins, and Greeley.

Floods tend to further degrade already degraded systems. Removal of vegetation in and around rivers, increased channel size, dams, levee bank and catchment clearing all work to degrade the hill-slopes, rivers and floodplains, and increase the erosion and transfer of both sediment and nutrients.

The largest source of contamination is runoff from land. Toxic runoff can be sewage, rainwater flowing over exposed topsoil, flooding or agricultural runoff. Rain can cause runoff of chemicals or waste that can seep into creeks, rivers and other waterways that lead to the ocean. Some of the chemicals found could be antibiotics or waste from animals, pesticides from crops or from pollutants, originating in the air, which have settled on land and washed away. Unless a solution to pollution runoff is found, this type of contamination will continue indefinitely and contribute to the deterioration of the ecosystem in the