Decision Support System for Developing Community-Driven Water Quality Monitoring Plans

There is an increasing awareness among regional natural resource managers of the value of data collected by community groups. This includes monitoring of surface rivers, streams, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, estuaries, coastal waters and groundwater. Water quality and condition data collected by community groups supplements information collected by state, regional and local resource management and planning agencies. However, a recent review of community water monitoring in Queensland suggests a lack of confidence among natural resource managers in community-generated datasets. A significant proportion of this concern stems from inconsistent formats for project planning and documentation practices among community groups.