Site Selection, Calendar, and Methods
Site Selection: Where will you monitor?
- A WAV volunteer monitors one or more sites as an individual or part of a 2-3 person team. Volunteers monitor streams and rivers that can be safely entered while wearing hip waders. Many WAV stream monitors choose a site based on their personal interest or proximity to their home or school.
- State WAV staff, as well as other natural resource professionals and local coordinators in your area are available to help choose monitoring locations.
- A stream site should be accessible from public property such as parks and road crossings or property owned by the volunteer. If the site is only accessible by crossing someone else's privately owned property, land-owner permission (preferably in writing) is required.
- While temperature, transparency, and dissolved oxygen are monitored at a specific point in the stream each month, it is important to note that the stream "site" is actually a stretch of stream several hundred feet in length. You will learn more about this as you read through each of the methods pages.
Calendar: When will you monitor?
WAV Volunteers, generally, follow this schedule for monitoring, however, local projects and organizations may have additional monitoring dates or activities available for volunteers in their area. These are the minimum guidelines for monitoring:
May – temperature, dissolved oxygen, streamflow and transparency – plus a biotic index
June – temperature, dissolved oxygen, streamflow and transparency – plus a biotic index if not done in May
July – temperature, dissolved oxygen, streamflow and transparency
August – temperature, dissolved oxygen, streamflow and transparency
September – temperature, dissolved oxygen, streamflow and transparency
October – temperature, dissolved oxygen, streamflow and transparency – plus a biotic index
Most WAV Volunteers complete their monitoring in an hour or less per month, with an additional 45-60 minutes added for biotic index in the months that they are monitored.
Keep track of your monthly monitoring withing our one-page WAV Baseline Monitoring Calendar!
Links to an external site.
Learn the Monitoring Methods
Please navigate through each of these monitoring methods by clicking "next" and reviewing the material before moving on in the course. There will be a brief 5-question knowledge check at the end of the module. Later, at an in-person training, you will have a hands-on demonstration and practice session to fully learn these methods.