Urban Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Approaches in Wisconsin

摘要

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is implementing a long-term urban monitoring strategy designed to support Wisconsin's Nonpoint Source and Stormwater Permit Programs. The purpose of the monitoring is to help ensure that management programs will improve the quality of Wisconsin's urban streams in the most cost-effective manner. At the core of the strategy are seven questions that we try to answer as part of preparing every urban nonpoint source control plan. All of the plans are enhanced with site-specific monitoring data for the first three questions, but the high cost of collecting monitoring data for the remaining four questions limits the data collection to special urban monitoring projects. Results are available for 26 special monitoring projects. To improve our answers to all of the questions, we are planning about 28 new special monitoring projects for the next five years. An urban runoff model and stormwater management manuals are used to transfer the results of special projects to other urban watersheds. One or more types of monitoring data are being collected to answer each question. Biological data is collected in every urban watershed to answer the first two questions and part of question 3. The first three questions are: 1) what are the designated uses of the streams, 2) what are the problems in the stream, and 3) what are the pollutants and/or habitat factors degrading the streams? Special monitoring projects using biological, chemical and physical data attempt to answer the last four questions and part of question 3. The part of question 3 answered by special monitoring is what, if any, potentially toxic pollutants are degrading the streams. The last four questions are: 4) what are the sources of the pollutants, 5) what are the goals for reducing the pollutants and changing other factors degrading the stream, 6) what management alternatives will achieve the goals, and 7) what did the implementation of practices improve in the streams?