Generating Usable Data

Anyone who has taken a Secchi transparency reading will tell you, it isn’t rocket science. So why do some state agencies object to data collected with volunteer help? Unlike the LMVP, many programs involving volunteers collecting water quality data (or other scientific data for that matter) are first and foremost public outreach efforts with educating the public about environmental concerns the main goal, and the generation of data a distant second. Data produced through volunteer efforts may be used for screening purposes, or they may be filed away and never used. This is especially true in situations where volunteers must use methods that lack the precision, accuracy and limit of detection that the agency requires.

The LMVP has different priorities. By design, our first two goals are collecting data to describe current water quality in Missouri’s lakes and monitoring for long term trends. Educating the public about lake ecology and water quality issues is number three. Generating quality data for statewide use has always been the focus of the program.

Because the value of volunteer data is sometimes questioned, the LMVP staff strives to emphasize the quality of our data every chance we get. In 1998 we published a paper entitled Evaluation of Data Generated from Lake Samples Collected by Volunteers in the Journal of Lake and Reservoir Management. That paper compared data generated with volunteer help to data generated solely by the University of Missouri Limnology Laboratory. What we found was not surprising (at least not to us!). The information collected with volunteer help was comparable to that collected by the University. A copy of this work can be found on the LMVP website (www.LMVP.org/documents.htm).

The LMVP staff is currently working on another review of the quality of volunteer data that we plan to present at the National Water Quality Monitoring conference in May. This conference will offer the opportunity to meet with other volunteer program coordinators and discuss issues, including how to foster the acceptance of volunteer data. We will share our thoughts on the conference and our findings in a future newsletter.

Changing perceptions about volunteer data can be an uphill battle, but as long as LMVP volunteers continue to put their time and effort into the collection and processing of lake samples, the LMVP staff will continue to fight for the acceptance of volunteer data.

Back to the Winter 2006 Water Line

Brought to you by the Lakes of Missouri Volunteer Program