GUCO CESU: Assessing Water Quality Conditions and Reviewing Monitoring Strategies for OZAR and BUFF

Description

This project aims to conduct a rigorous statistical analysis of existing water quality datasets for river, tributary, and spring sites at Buffalo National River and Ozark National Scenic Riverways, and then use insights about water quality conditions and trends to make near-term decisions about future monitoring strategies and allocation of scarce monitoring resources. This project directly engages the recipient in the assessment and stewardship of water resources at two Ozark riverine parks through collaborative water quality data analysis and review of water quality monitoring strategies. The project is expected to reveal new insights into water quality conditions, trends, and potential threats to these parks and to advance scientific knowledge of water resources in this ecologically important region. Results from this project will be shared with scientific and public audiences via oral presentations, scientific publications, and informal fact sheets or briefings. This project involves collaborative compilation, analysis, and interpretation of existing water quality datasets from Buffalo National River and Ozark National Scenic Riverways. Water quality experts from the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture will be engaged to complete the proposed data analyses. Both well established and more recently developed statistical tools will be employed to address questions about water quality trends and patterns in historical water quality variability. The trend analysis and results will be evaluated by considering the number of observations, samples per year on average, and length of database to help understand the statistical power of potential monitoring designs. Results will be used to optimize water quality monitoring designs and provide new insights into water quality management issues at each park.

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