University of Rhode Island Watershed Watch (URIWW), RI: water quality monitoring, 1988-2010

The URI Watershed Watch (URIWW) is a volunteer water quality monitoring program that works with local communities to assess water quality. Led by trained scientists, URI Watershed Watch helps local governments, watershed, tribal and other organizations recruit and train volunteers to become citizen scientists gathering detailed, quality assured monitoring data. This watershed-based program focuses on long-term environmental monitoring of RI's fresh and salt water resources including lakes, ponds, streams and coastal waters. URIWW staff provides training, equipment, supplies and analytical services tailored to organizational needs, while meeting strict quality assurance and quality control guidelines in the field and in our state-certified water testing laboratory. Sites included for LAGOS purposes are classified as Lakes by URIWW program. Tidally-influenced or salt pond sites were excluded. A single site was selected for the handful of lakes/reservoirs with 2 sampling site records, and a limited number of other lakes were excluded if they were sampled in only 1 year and for a subset of variables. Otherwise, all sites classified as lakes by URIWW are included in the LAGOS-relevant files.