Bragg Creek Water Quality Monitoring

The Bragg Creek Water Quality Sampling group (comprising 44 volunteer citizen scientists) collected grab samples along Bragg Creek from 2005 to 2019. Each sampling period covered the first “weekend” of the month (Friday through Monday). Six sites were monitored five times per year (May through September). The resulting dataset provides baseline conditions for the temporal and spatial variations in gradients of water quality in Bragg Creek, measured in six water quality traits and stream level, and is sufficiently long for among-year trends to emerge. With each passing year, the additional data allow for a more robust statistical analysis of water quality changes. Our project is succesful thanks to Ralph Cartar's dedication, the Elbow River Watershed Partnership, turbidity meter from The City of Calgary, conductivity meter from Bob McAlpine, and titration of our stream gauge from Alberta Environment)

Citation

Bragg Creek Water Quality Monitoring Collective. 2021-02-11. "Bragg Creek Water Quality Monitoring" (dataset). 1.0.0. DataStream. https://doi.org/10.25976/jwkp-w975.

Funding Sources

Elbow River Watershed Partnership with some equipment donated by City of Calgary and Bob McAlpine

Data Collection Information

The Bragg Creek Water Quality Sampling group (comprising 44 volunteer citizen scientists) collected grab samples along Bragg Creek from 2005 to 2019. Each sampling period covered the first “weekend” of the month (Friday through Monday). Six sites were monitored five times per year (May through September). The resulting dataset provides baseline conditions for the temporal and spatial variations in gradients of water quality in Bragg Creek, measured in six water quality traits and stream level, and is sufficiently long for among-year trends to emerge. With each passing year, the additional data allow for a more robust statistical analysis of water quality changes. This is the equipment used for monitoring:
Meters currently in use (2020):
-Hach 2100P Turbidometer (0-9 NTUs (±2%))
-Hach Pocket Colorimeter II (Nitrate; Cadmium Reduction Method, 0.4-30 mg/L)
-Hach Pocket Colorimeter II (Phosphorus; Reactive (Orthophosphate); Ascorbic Acid Method, 0.2-3.0 mg/L)
-Hanna HI 96753C Chloride Meter (0-20 mg/L (±6% of reading @ 25°C))
-Hanna HI 9033 Conductivity Meter (0-1999 (±1%))

Data Collection Processing

The key modifications to data came in 2 ways:

1. All measurements of turbidity, N, P, Cl, and conductivity reported are an average of 3 readings. These weren't 3 independent preparations of the same water sample. They were 3 readings of the same preparation of the same sample. That is, they reduce measurement error, not sampling error.

2. Some "zero" readings for kits with high sensitivity were discarded, because they represent a failure in the process, not a true zero.

Public Domain Dedication and Licence (ODC-PDDL) v1.0

This licence places the data in the public domain (waiving all rights). The PDDL imposes no restrictions on your use of the PDDL licenced data. You are free to share, copy, distribute, use, modify, transform, build upon, and produce works from the data. https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1-0/

Data Disclaimer

Please attribute data to Bragg Creek Water Quality Monitoring Collective

API Access

curl -G https://api.datastream.org/v1/odata/v4/Records --data-urlencode "\\$filter=DOI eq '10.25976/jwkp-w975'" -H "x-api-key: PRIVATE-API-KEY"

Changelog