Volunteer Water

If you are interested in learning more about our Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Program please email us at vmwq@coastal.edu. We will set up a brief phone call to go over our monitoring program and come up with a plan for you to shadow a volunteer team during an upcoming sampling day. After you have sampled a couple of times with our experienced volunteers, we will set up a training session. 

Our volunteers fulfill different roles depending on their availability and interests and the team's needs.

All volunteers are trained to conduct field sampling. Sampling takes about 30 minutes per sampling site. Depending on the number of sites a volunteer team has, field sampling can last between one to two hours. Sampling occurs on two mornings a month and the schedule is dependent on the project (e.g. second and forth Tuesdays). All sampling must be finished by 10:30 a.m.

Some volunteers have additional responsibilities before or after sampling which can include: calibrating and preparing the sampling equipment, conducting the turbidity analysis using a portable turbidimeter, and entering data online. Volunteers responsible for these tasks commit an additional one to three hours per sampling event and require additional training. 

If it sounds like something your schedule will allow, contact us to learn more about the program

After sampling, volunteers submit their data to us and notify us of any unusual observations. We compile the data into a provisional report that is quickly shared with our local stormwater managers. These reports help our stormwater departments to identify potential sources of pollution and track hotspots overtime. 

Following a thorough review of the volunteer data, data are uploaded to our public online database. Data are also uploaded to national databases including the Water Quality Portal.  

The Waccamaw Watershed Academy's Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Program adheres to methods and procedures rooted in industry standards for all aspects of our water quality monitoring. Our protocols are outlined in our comprehensive Volunteer Monitoring Handbook.

Our internal SOPs and Volunteer Handbook are part of our Quality Assurance Project Plan (VWQMP QAPP) approved in 2021 by the SC Department of Environmental Control (now the Department of Environmental Services).

We are in the process of updating our QAPP and handbook to reflect changes in manufacturer recommendations and water monitoring best practices. The updated handbook and QAPP should be available later this year. 

If you would like to use our handbook or QAPP for your water quality monitoring efforts, please contact us to learn more.