Evaluation of Data Generated from Lake Samples Collected by Volunteers

Abstract

ABSTRACT The goals of the Lakes of Missouri Volunteer Program are to involve citizens in the collection of water samples to monitor lake trophic state and to provide outreach education about lake water quality. Results indicate data generated with volunteer help are of the same quality as that generated by a research laboratory. This conclusion is based on three different methods of evaluation: (1) Comparisons of volunteer and University collected samples showed trophic state classifications were the same for 74% of lakes based on total phosphorus, 84% for total nitrogen and 89% for chlorophyll; (2) Agreement between paired chlorophyll filters was assessed to gauge volunteer processing technique; 88% of the filter pairs was considered good or excellent based on a rating scale developed for this program; (3) Split sampling showed no significant differences for total suspended solids, chlorophyll or total nitrogen. Total phosphorus analysis showed a significant difference with volunteer samples being consistently less than University samples. Prior to analysis, volunteer samples for total phosphorus were stored frozen in high density polyethylene bottles while University samples were refrigerated in glass tubes. This difference in storage method may have caused the irregularity in our results.