Community Science Water Quality Monitoring Program

In collaboration with partners at the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed (CPRW) has established a Community Science Water Quality Monitoring program. This program serves as a CLP upper watershed water quality monitoring program in an attempt to understand wildfire and wildfire mitigation (prescribed burn, forest thinning, etc.) effects on source water and to track restoration project success and adaptively manage restoration projects.

Currently, CPRW manages the Community Science Program and its volunteers, while water quality analysis is completed in Dr. Charles Rhoades RMRS biogeochemistry lab. All community science volunteers are trained annually by CPRW staff on field sampling techniques and quality assurance protocols listed within USFS RMRS 2021 Quality Assurance Procedure document.

Our Community Science Water Quality Monitoring Program has three focus areas:

1. Develop a baseline data set of water quality in high priority reaches (based on CPRW’s Upper Poudre Resiliency Plan)

2. Collect water quality data to measure the impact of prescribed fire, an increasingly important forest management tool, on our waterways

3. Monitor the impacts from the Cameron Peak Fire and track outcomes from post-fire restoration

4. Collect data pre- and post-project to better understand the impacts of river restoration on water quality

Questions? Please email Cory Dick, Rivers Project Manager, at cory@poudrewatershed.org

Calling all community scientists!

Volunteers will collect water quality data in small streams in the Upper Poudre Watershed on a monthly basis from June-October. Fill out the below form if you are interested in learning more.