Water Quality Monitoring

What is water quality monitoring?

The WVP Water quality monitoring consists of three main components that give a holistic picture of the health of a stream:

Chemical Monitoring

 Chemical monitoring can tell us about the health of waterways. It's essential to monitor for chemical parameters to ensure that water quality is suitable for aquatic life and recreation. Chemical monitoring consists of observing and recording chemical parameters such as turbidity, Dissolved Oxygen, pH, temperature and nutrients.

Biological Monitoring

The health of a stream can be determined by the aquatic life living in it. The greater the diversity of aquatic creatures, the healthier the stream. A low number of species and living organisms is a sign of poor stream health. Biological monitoring focuses on sampling aquatic species living in water ranging from macroinvertebrates to fish and aquatic vegetation.

Physical Monitoring

A healthy stream has a variety of instream habitats (pools, riffles, runs, glides) as well connection to a well vegetated riparian corridor. Physical assessments are performed to assess the quality of existing in stream habitat and to look for potential areas of concern which may be improved with restoration efforts.

What is in our waters?

Have you ever looked at a body of water and wondered "What's in there?" If you have, you wouldn't be alone. Next time you look at a stream or river, challenge yourself to think about its many uses and how what makes it into our waterways can affect the living beings that live and recreate there.

What affects our streams?

Waterways can be impacted by a number of sources ranging from discharges, dumping, runoff, and excessive erosion. Each of these can affect the chemistry, biology, and habitat of the stream. 


Why monitor?

Regular monitoring provides agencies with data to fill in data gaps from their existing monitoring programs. Monitoring chemical, biological, and habitat indicators inform us about the quality of our waters. This knowledge can be used to write grants, determine the need for restoration projects, inform stakeholders, and educate the public.  Overall, monitoring is an essential step to better protect our streams, rivers, and lakes.

WVP Monitoring Opportunities

WVP works with partnering watershed groups and within the Metroparks to provide monitoring opportunities to volunteers. Opportunities range from virtual talks to in person field sessions. Past monitoring opportunities include macroinvertebrate monitoring work sessions in the Chagrin River to fish and crayfish workshops with Cleveland Metroparks aquatic biologists and researchers and more. 

Regular monitoring events are groups sessions. These events differ from independent project monitoring. If you are interested in an independent monitoring project please see all the monitoring independent project pages for more information.

Water Quality Monitoring with WVP

The Watershed Volunteer Program currently operates a varied monitoring program with plentiful avenues to flex your monitoring muscles. Options include chemistry and macroinvertebrate monitoring programs led by our local watershed partners (Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District, Tinker's Creek Watershed Partners, and Doan Brook Watershed Partnership), project specific efforts like Salt Watch, the Lake Erie Volunteer Science Network's Lake Erie Baseline Assessment Framework, or Bank Erosion Hazard Index assessments and more. Watershed Stewards can volunteer for any of these monitoring efforts as an independent projects. Click on links below to get more information about specific opportunities and email wvpinfo@clevelandmetroparks.com to get started.

Our volunteers assist with monitoring in the following watersheds:

Getting Started

Water Quality: Additional Resources