Monitoring Estuarine Water Quality in Coastal Parks: Park-wide Assessments

Estuaries are the convergence of freshwater delivered by rivers to the ocean's salty sea water. The result is a delicate ecosystem providing life 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 fixed station monitoring is conducted on a monthly basis, park-wide assessments are completed every five years. Samples are taken of both water and sediment at random sites within the park. Collected measurements include pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, temperature, chlorophyll a, water clarity, and salinity.

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

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