How It Works
Teams of volunteer monitors visit stream sites in April, July, October, and optionally during the winter. They conduct habitat assessments and collect and identify “benthic macroinvertebrates,” small organisms that live in the streams. Because these organisms exhibit a range of sensitivities to pollutants and stressors, they help us determine the streams’ health. Our program is distinct in that our monitors identify aquatic insects to the taxonomic level of family. This gives us a clearer picture of aquatic diversity and stream health than more general identification practices. Our program is also unique in that monitors learn to identify the organisms in the field and then release them alive, rather than preserving them in alcohol and sending them to a lab for identification.
Each team has a designated leader who is certified in identification. New volunteers are teamed with experienced monitors at stream sites convenient to them. Our water quality classes give volunteers the information they need to monitor. See what it's like--check out the video below!
Get Involved
Become a Volunteer Water Quality Monitor
Before going into the field, new monitors should have a basic knowledge of macroinvertebrate identification and stream ecology, either from previous training or by attending ANS’s water quality classes. Volunteers should also be willing to commit to at least two seasons of monitoring.
Ready to join a monitoring team? Apply Today!
Reports & Data
Where We Monitor: see a map of all our water-quality monitoring data. It shows all of our sites that have been monitored in the last five years. Click a site's microscope icon to see a full list of organisms collected in the last monitoring session and its most recent stream health score (once it's been quality-reviewed). At the bottom of the pop-up, click "Stream Health Over Time" to see a chart of spring Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) scores graphed over time.
Download ANS WQM Data: The Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC) hosts our data in its Chesapeake Data Explorer, where it is packaged for download in a consistent format with other volunteer-collected water quality data and made available to the public and state & federal agencies. Visit the Chesapeake Data Explorer's Query Page, set the Data Type to "Benthic Macroinvertebrates," and then set the Group to "Audubon Naturalist Society." You can filter further by site (Station) and time period. Data availability in CMC is updated at the end of each calendar year.
