U.S. Geological Survey

NAtional Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program

Willamette Basin

Why NAWQA?

• Most clean water programs have no provision for tracking their effectiveness.
• Long-term, interdisciplinary studies that attempt to evaluate water quality from local, regional, and nationwide perspectives are rare.
  

GOALS

• Summarize status and trends of the Nation's surface- and ground-water quality.
• Describe natural and human factors affecting water quality.
• Provide timely and useful (policy relevant) results to water managers, policy makers, and the public.

SCOPE

• Includes 3 years of high-intensity sampling (FY93-95 for the Willamette Basin), followed by 6 years of low-intensity sampling and report completion. Then the cycle repeats.
  
• Encompasses physical, chemical, and biological measurements.
  
• Provides information on more than 80 pesticides.
  

APPROACH

• Ground Water
  
  1. Study unit survey to determine basinwide occurrence of major constituents, nutrients, pesticides, and volatile organic compounds (70 wells in the Willamette Basin).
  2. Land-use studies to evaluate effects on shallow ground-water quality (53 wells in the Willamette Basin).
  3. Transect studies oriented toward understanding hydrologic and water-quality processes (one modified transect study in the Willamette Basin).

• Surface Water
  
  1. Monitoring of major constituents, nutrients, and suspended sediment at fixed locations on streams (seven sites in the Willamette Basin).
  2. Pesticide sampling at a subset of the fixed sites (four sites in the Willamette Basin).
  3. Periodic synoptic studies of pesticides, nutrients, or other constituents (six synoptic studies in the Willamette Basin) .
  4. Analyses of bed sediment and aquatic tissue samples for trace elements and hydrophobic organic compounds (28 sites in the Willamette Basin).
     
  5. Ecological sampling for algae, benthic invertebrates, fish, and habitat (26 sites in the Willamette Basin).

LIAISON COMMITTEE

• Purposes
  
  1. Coordinate efforts with regard to local water-quality issues.
  2. Provide information on local sources of data.
  3. Give definition to "policy relevance."
  4. Provide feedback on plans and results.
• Meetings held about twice per year.
  
• Attended by representatives of federal, state, and local governmental agencies and private organizations, university researchers, and private citizens.