Best practice in high-frequency water quality monitoring for improved management and assessment; a novel decision workflow

Sammanfattning

The use of high-frequency water quality monitoring has increased over several decades. This has mostly been motivated by curiosity-driven research and has significantly improved our understanding of hydrochemical processes. Despite these scientific successes and the growth in sensor technology, the large-scale uptake of high-frequency water quality monitoring by water managers is hampered by a lack of comprehensive practical guidelines. Low-frequency hydrochemical data are still routinely used to review environmental policies but are prone to missing important event-driven processes. With a changing climate where such event-driven processes are more likely to occur and have a greater impact, the adoption of high-frequency water quality monitoring is becoming more pressing. To prepare regulators and environmental and hydrological agencies for these new challenges, this paper reviews international best practice in high-frequency data provision. As a result, we summarise the added value of high-frequency water quality monitoring, describe international best practices for sensors and analysers in the field, and evaluate the experience with high-frequency data cleaning. We propose a decision workflow that includes considerations of monitoring data needs, sensor choice, maintenance and calibration, and structured data processing. The workflow fills an important knowledge-exchange gap between research and statutory surveillance for future high-frequency water quality sensor uptake by practitioners and agencies.

Nyckelord

Water quality; High-frequency data; Sensors; Monitoring; Decision workflow

Publicerad i

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
2025, volym: 197, nummer: 4, artikelnummer: 353
Utgivare: SPRINGER

SLU författare

• Bieroza, Magdalena

  • Institutionen för mark och miljö, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

UKÄ forskningsämne

Oceanografi, hydrologi, vattenresurser

Publikationens identifierare

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-025-13795-z

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141242