Monitoring Estuarine Water Quality in Coastal Parks: Fixed Station Monitoring

Estuaries are the convergence of freshwater, delivered by rivers, to the ocean's salty sea water. The result is a delicate ecosystem providing existence for a multitude of fish and wildlife species. Estuaries located in national parks can also provide recreational experiences for park visitors such as fishing and boating. Therefore, knowing what's in the water can assist the park in its misson of managing such a critcal resource. With parks situated along the Atlantic Coast, from Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina, to Canaveral National Seashore in Florida, the Southeast Coast Network monitors water quality through fixed station data collections and park-wide assessments. While park-wide assessments are conducted every five years, data is collected through fixed station monitoring on a continual (monthly) basis. Data loggers collect salinity, specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, turbidity (cloudiness of the water), temperature, pH and depth.

To help you learn more about how these estuaries formed, the potential issues they face, and the process of monitoring the water quality utilizing fixed station monitoring, we have created the story map, "Monitoring Estuarine Water Quality in Coastal Parks, A Multiscale Approach: Fixed Station Monitoring."

Prepared by the Southeast Coast Inventory and Monitoring Network, 2019.