Lake Monitoring Services from AEC
The condition or health of a water body is determined by many factors. The physical attributes of a pond, ie size, depth and soil type all influence water quality. The other main contributing aspect affecting water quality is the watershed and waters that supply a waterbody. The size of the watershed and practices occurring within the watershed have a great impact on surface run-off. Construction and disturbance of soil can hasten the process of sedimentation, while farming can increase nutrient loading. AEC can help identify problems within your waterbody or watershed.
Many parameters can be measured to determine the condition of your pond or lake: pH, alkalinity, hardness, conductivity, secchi depth, temperature/dissolved oxygen profile, chlorophyll a, zooplankton, phytoplankton and total phosphorus. A select few analyses can be done to determine the general condition of your waterbody or a more in-depth analysis may be carried out to give a better assessment of the trophic state of your waterbody.
AEC can design a monitoring program that will best fit your needs!
Basic Water Quality
Basic water quality is monitored during each visit of a management program and gives us immediate feedback about the current conditions in a water body.
Advanced Water Quality
A more in-depth, long-term monitoring program can help us fine tune our management goals and identify trends in water quality. Parameters such as total phosphorus, chlorophyll and phytoplankton/zooplankton populations would be monitored.
Long-Term Monitoring Programs
Perhaps you would like to extensively evaluate the condition of your water. We have long-term monitoring that will give you a historic baseline and can track changes over time. You may want to know the TSI value or Trophic State of your water body and see how it changes with time.