NWDTW 2024

As turbidity corrections for field-based fluorescence measurements have been conducted at more sites with elevated turbidities across the nation, evidence of poor correction performance has mounted. In some cases, extreme and erratic values were generated from the corrections. It was determined that the commonly used single parameter exponential fit approximated by Excel does a poor job of correcting for particle interference for many high turbidity samples. An evaluation of turbidity corrections experiments in the laboratory and field samples suggested that updated guidance for turbidity corrections was warranted for high turbidity waters. Here we evaluate different approaches to turbidity corrections for fluorescence measurements and discuss factors affecting the corrections.