San Diego Coastkeeper

Water Monitoring

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Overview

Despite the importance of clean water, water pollution in its many forms continues to plague the region’s eleven watersheds. Despite the allocation of significant resources to monitoring efforts, there remains an inadequate understanding of local water quality, undermining our ability to properly manage these vital resources. Gathering and managing sufficient data to gain a comprehensive and objective view of regional water quality issues remains a formidable task.

Citizen involvement in pollution abatement and source tracking is an essential component of the Watershed Monitoring Program. The Clean Water Act has many mechanisms built in that empower citizens to be involved in preserving and improving the health of the watersheds that they live, work and play in. SD Coastkeeper’s Watershed Monitoring Program is a vehicle for citizen involvement and empowerment for the conservation of local waters and the improvement of water quality.

San Diego Coastkeeper's Watershed Monitoring Program works with a wide variety of regulatory agencies, academic institutions, businesses and non-profit organizations along with dedicated volunteers to supplement the limited data resources available, protect sensitive ecosystems, identify and abate pollution sources, track the effectiveness of pollution prevention plans, and prevent further degradation of our precious water resources.

Citizen involvement and outreach programs extend beyond the US and into the Mexican side of the Tijuana River Watershed, as the Program takes an active role in working to support the pollution concerns that the residents of Tijuana face. Environmental degradation and a sick environment is an indicator of worsening human health, and efforts made to work towards cleaner waterways are directly tied to improving the relationship that we as communities and individuals have with our most precious natural resource: fresh water.

Click here to view the Water Monitoring Training Overview Presentation (pdf is 2 MB).