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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Water Quality Data Elements (WQDE) workgroup of the Methods and Data Comparability Board developed the Data Elements and the information in this introductory guidance. The WQDE workgroup began developing the set of water quality data elements for chemical and microbiological analytes in March 1999. The National Water Quality Monitoring Council and the Advisory Committee on Water Information approved these in 2001. Data elements described here extend that original work. The co-chairs of the WQDE workgroup that have generated the proposed lists and forged consensus on their content are Mr. Charles Job of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr. Glenn Patterson of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and Ms. LeAnne Astin of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. The WQDE workgroup membership guided the development of each list and consisted of representatives from many federal, tribal, state, and local agencies, academia, and the private and public sector water industries as listed below:

Arizona Department of Environmental Quality	New York Department of Environmental Health
Association of Public Health Laboratories	Ohio River Sanitation Commission
Delaware River Basin Commission	Orange County Water District (California)
Denver Metropolitan Water District	Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
East Bay Municipal Utility District (California)	St. Johns River Water Management District
Florida Department of Environmental Protection	Tetra Tech, Inc.
George Washington University	Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
Hampton Roads Sanitation District (Virginia)	Washington State Department of Ecology
IDEXX Laboratories, Inc.	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin	United States Environmental Protection Agency
Merck and Co., Inc.	United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Michigan State University	United States Geological Survey
National Institute for Standards and Technology
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Water Research Institute
New Jersey State Geological Survey (or Department of Environmental Protection)

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ABSTRACT

Many entities collect water quality monitoring data using different data reporting templates. However, drawing comparisons and discerning trends in water quality are difficult due not only to large natural variations in conditions but also to widely disparate assessment methodologies, data system incompatibilities, and inconsistent data documentation standards. These problems are found in both surface water and ground water studies. These barriers impede coordination of data collection efforts and the productive exchange of water quality data among monitoring entities. Recent reports by federal, state, and non-governmental organizations including the U.S. General Accounting Office, the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators, and the Environmental Integrity Project, have highlighted these problems.

The Methods and Data Comparability Board (MDCB) with the National Water Quality Monitoring Council (NWQMC) developed sets of data elements which they believe are the minimum elements necessary to facilitate the exchange of chemical, microbiological, population/community (ecological and bioassessment) and (eco) toxicological assessment data. These elements were approved by the Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI). This Guide lists these data elements as modules in a framework that addresses who, where, when, why, and how data are collected. Several modules of elements are common to all types of water quality data (e.g., contact information, where samples are collected), while other modules contain somewhat different data elements depending on the type of analyte (e.g., how samples were collected, result type). Several tools are now available to help automate the implementation of these data elements and the Guide describes several programs and activities in which these elements are now being incorporated.

The data elements lists are not sets of required information; rather, they are recommended as a means to help data collectors more easily consider the most important WQDE needed to assess data comparability. These lists have been developed in conjunction with numerous Local, State,
Federal, and private sector water-quality sampling entities to assure that the use of the data elements listed are compatible with the majority of existing databases. Use of these data elements will help ensure that information collected and reported by various organizations will increase in value to other agencies and the public. The Advisory Committee, its Monitoring Council and Methods Board believe that the use of these standard WQDE will enhance the evaluation and sharing of water quality monitoring data across levels of government and organizations and will improve water quality data collected in the future. The Advisory Committee recommends that organizations collecting and managing such data use these data elements to facilitate data sharing.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................................................ ii

ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................................... iv

ABBREVIATIONS........................................................................................................................ viii

1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................ 1

1.1 Benefits of Using WQDE.................................................................................................... 2

1.2 What is a Standard Data Elements Set?............................................................................... 2

1.3 How were the Data Elements Developed?.......................................................................... 3

1.4 What is the Voluntary Nature of the WQDE?...................................................................... 5

1.5 Who Should Use Standard WQDE?................................................................................... 5

1.6 How Do You Use WQDE Now?........................................................................................ 6

1.7 How will the WQDE list be kept current?............................................................................ 6

2.0 Water Quality Data Element Format............................................................................................. 8

2.1 Modular System of Data Elements....................................................................................... 8

2.2 Implementing the Data Elements.......................................................................................... 9

2.3 Reporting Frequency of Data Elements.............................................................................. 10

3.0 WQDE Common to All Types of Data....................................................................................... 13

3.1 Point of Contact................................................................................................................ 13

3.2 Date/Time......................................................................................................................... 13

3.3 Sampling Station Location................................................................................................. 13

4.0 WQDE Unique to Particular Types of Data................................................................................ 15

4.1 Results.............................................................................................................................. 15

4.2 Reason for Sampling......................................................................................................... 15

4.3 Sample Collection, Analysis, QA/QC................................................................................ 16

5.0 Case Studies Incorporating WQDE........................................................................................... 18

5.1 States and EPA Environmental Data Standards Council (EDSC)........................................ 18

5.2 Delaware River Basin Commission.................................................................................... 18

5.3 New York Intensive Basins Studies Program...................................................................... 18

5.4 New York Mohawk River Basin Ground Water Quality Project........................................ 19

5.5 Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District - USGS WQDE Project................................. 19

5.6 Stroud Water Research Center - New York Project.......................................................... 19

5.7 Pacific Northwest Water Quality Data Exchange................................................................ 20

5.8 Citizens Monitoring Program, California State Water Resources Control Board............20

6.0 Using WQDE Effectively........................................................................................................... 21

6.1 Integrating Data Elements for Certain Monitoring Needs........................................................

6.2 Storing Data....................................................................................................................... 21

6.3 Database Requirements..................................................................................................... 21

6.4 Real - Time or Continuous Data........................................................................................ 21

6.5 Communication................................................................................................................. 22

7.0 Conclusions............................................................................................................................... 23

8.0 Literature Cited......................................................................................................................... 24

List of Exhibits

Exhibit 1: Schematic Representation of the Modular System............................................................... 8

Exhibit 2: Summary of Recording Frequency for Chemical and Microbiological Analytes.................. 12

List of Appendices

Appendix A: Data Elements, Definitions, and Recording Frequency for Reporting Water Quality Results of Chemical and Microbiological Analytes Tables

Appendix B: Data Elements, Definitions, and Recording Frequency for Reporting Water Quality Results of Toxicological Analyses

Appendix C: Data Elements, Definitions, and Recording Frequency for Reporting Water Quality Results of Population and Community Analyses

ABBREVIATIONS

ACWI	Advisory Committee on Water Information
ASTM	American Society for Testing and Materials
BMP	Best Management Practice
CAS	Chemical Abstract Service
CRS	Chemical Registry System
CWA	Clean Water Act
DET	Data Exchange Templates
DRBC	Delaware River Basin Commission
EDR	Environmental Data Registry
EPA	U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
EDSC	Environmental Data Standards Council
FACA	Federal Advisory Committee Act
GIS	Geographic Information System
ICTVdB	International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses Database
ITFM	Intergovernmental Task Force on Monitoring Water Quality
ITIS	Integrated Taxonomic Identification System
MDCB	Methods and Data Comparability Board
MMSD	Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District
NWQMC	National Water Quality Monitoring Council
NYCDEP	New York City Department of Environmental Protection
NYSDEC	New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
NYSDOH	New York State Department of Health
OMB	Office of Management and Budget
PDA	Personal Digital Assistant
P.O.	Post Office
QA/QC	Quality Assurance/Quality Control
RPD	Relative Percent Difference
SD	Standard Deviation
SM	Standard Methods
SOP	Standard Operating Procedure
STORET	STOrage and RETrevial Database of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
USGS	United States Geological Survey
WDNR	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
WICP	Water Information Coordination Program of the U.S. Geological Survey
WQDE	Water Quality Data Elements
XML	Extensible Markup Language
ZIP	Zone Improvement Plan
E C	degrees Celsius
%RSD	Percent Relative Standard Deviation
Fg/L	micrograms per liter
pCi/L	pico-Curies per liter
CFU/ml	colony forming units per milliliter

1.0 Introduction

Widespread use of commonly accepted data elements will increase the comparability, sharing, and value of water quality data. Data elements provide the definition and structure of data and metadata used to describe the results of water quality investigations. These elements address the who, what, where, when, why, and how data are collected and analyzed, providing extremely useful information about the data to prospective users. When common data elements are used by data generator organizations, the information collected and reported increases its value to other agencies, to the public, and even to the agency that originally collected the data because the data continues to be understood. Such data can then be used in subsequent studies and shared with others, potentially increasing the geographic or temporal coverage of water quality characterizations and providing better information upon which to base management decisions.

In the late 1990s, the National Water Quality Monitoring Council (NWQMC), and its member federal, tribal, state, and local agencies, and private sector organizations, identified the need for a technical and institutional framework for archiving data that described water quality with enough metadata that it could be assessed for comparability by secondary users. This need stemmed, in part, from earlier recommendations made by the National Research Council (NRC, 1995) and the Interagency Task Force on Monitoring (ITFM, 1995a, b), the latter having produced a data elements glossary to standardize terms. The Methods and Data Comparability Board (MDCB), a Workgroup under the NWQMC, formed a Water Quality Data Elements Workgroup in 1999 to address this need.

The water quality data elements effort was timely, in light of subsequent reports and recommendations made by several other prominent organizations including the National Academy Of Public Administration (NAPA, 2002), Heinz Center (2002), USEPA (2003), and the General Accounting Office (GAO, 2000 and 2004). Each of these reports emphasized the lack of sufficient metadata available to data users, resulting in questions of data comparability, missed opportunities for data sharing, and inadequate regional and national water quality assessments.