NWDTW 2024

Each year, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) personnel collect approximately 52,000 water-quality samples from rivers and streams across the United States. Several samplers are employed by the USGS for water-quality sample collection in riverine environments. These samplers are coated with Plasti Dip® to protect the exterior of the sampler; however, Plasti Dip® is susceptible to fraying and wear, requiring maintenance. Alternative coatings were tested to determine if a different coating is better suited for the samplers. The alternative coatings included DuraCoat®, Raptor, and powder coating; a fifth option was bare metal. Samplers with different coatings were evaluated based on initial coating application, equipment-blank samples, a controlled-destruction test, blank-sample collection with worn samplers, maintenance and re-coating of samplers, and field-use and degradation tracking. The powder-coated sampler proved to be the top performer in each aspect of the study.

The AQUARIUS Samples team will be available for a Question-and-Answer session.

DISCUSSION GROUP--This guided session aims to provide a venue for dialogue amongst those interested discussing field vehicle setups. Utilizing the projector in the classroom we can share photos so have your photos handy and able to send them through email or teams.

This session will cover the various aspects of what is typically done before a discrete water-quality sample can be collected and options for project management.
It will include a general overview of the discrete water-quality sampling process, how to look up lab codes/schedules, what bottles are needed for what analysis, equipment blanks, filling out ASR's and other laboratory paperwork, site selection, assessing equipment needs, establishing field folders and various project related documents.
Target audience: Staff who are interested or new(er) to collecting a discrete water-quality sample or will be in the future.

This session will cover the various techniques and methods used to collect a discrete water-quality sample.
It will include an overview of various discrete sampling equipment, conditions the equipment is appropriate for, techniques for using the equipment, introduction to sample processing and sample preservation.
Target audience: Staff who are interested or new(er) to collecting a discrete water-quality sample or will be in the future.

Class will Break from 9:30 to 10 am.

This session will cover what has to be done after a discrete water-quality sample has been collected.
It will include sample processing methods and order, sample preservation, overview of sample shipping, completing paperwork and an introduction to data review options.
Target audience: Staff who are interested or new(er) to collecting a discrete water-quality sample or will be in the future.

The USGS frequently uses external laboratories for analyses of discrete water-quality samples. For example, if a cooperator is interested in a constituent that the National Water Quality Lab (NWQL) does not analyze, the project team may identify a suitable laboratory that performs this analysis. However, if an external lab is not contracted through the NWQL, specific data management and approval procedures must be considered. Use of a non-contracted external lab may require staff to upload sample results to the National Water Information System (NWIS), and possibly complete the USGS’s formal laboratory evaluation process (LEP).

In this presentation, we will show an example workflow describing data management, LEP document preparation, QA/QC evaluation, and uploading results to WDFN through the USGS batch data loader (BDL). This workflow was developed by the California WSC Biogeochemistry (BGC) Group and uses scripting in both Python and R, and a Tableau data visualization tool to manage and evaluate external laboratory data. These tools have helped us streamline our process, saving time and reducing transcription errors. We receive numerous data files from external laboratories, and this workflow has increased the efficiency of publishing our data in NWIS. Other Centers could likely incorporate the tools we developed into their own processes to further enhance workflows for evaluating and using external laboratories.

This session will cover various aspects of shipping discrete water-quality samples to the National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL).
It will include how to look up information on the NWQL internal website, LIMs v11, ASRs, and general information on contract labs.
Target audience: Staff who are sending discrete water-quality samples to the NWQL or will be in the future.

Understanding the water quality of U.S. streams and rivers requires consistent data collection and analysis over decades. The U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Network (NWQN) was established to facilitate national-scale understanding of surface-water quality conditions through the collection of comparable data in large rivers and small streams in different geographic and land-use settings. Data collected by the NWQN support the needs of Federal, State and local stakeholders tasked with managing our Nation’s water resources. This talk will provide an overview of the history of national-scale, surface-water quality monitoring in the USGS, current network objectives and scope, data collection and reporting methods, sampling resources as well as published products utilizing NWQN data.

With the recent launch of AQUARIUS Samples (AQS), there is massive opportunity to grow our water quality workflows. AQS has been launched with an eye towards extensibility through the Discrete Samples Extensibility Tools (DSET), Data Hub Data Warehouse with Dremio, and the Data Hub Service Mesh. The USGS-built extensibility endpoints, along with the native Application Programming Interface offered by AQS itself, makes it easier than ever to build sophisticated data flows to support a wide variety of water quality workflows. This presentation will share what is known about the product roadmap for AQS so that people considering building tooling in the new AQS+ space can plan how to invest resources wisely and so that all users know what to expect from the product now that ASIP is closed.

This will be an overview of the Discrete Samples Extensibility Tools (DSET), any updates made since version 1.0.0, and some insights into feature updates that are in the works.

There is more than one way to retrieve data from AQUARIUS Samples. This presentation will introduce you to the AQS APIs and Dremio. We will connect Excel to the AQS APIs to create ‘live’ workbooks that can be refreshed. We will use Dremio to perform national scale queries in a data lakehouse and discuss sharing common queries for all to use.

The USGS-National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) has been an NADP partner agency since 1981. USGS is one of many Federal and State agencies of the National Trends Network (NTN) and provides funding for 82 out of a total of 263 NTN sites, the largest Federal funding contributor of all participating agencies. Weekly precipitation samples are collected and shipped to a central laboratory that analyzes the amount and type of atmospheric constituents in the precipitation sample. The NTN provides scientists, resource managers, and policymakers with long-term, high-quality atmospheric deposition data used to support research and decision-making in the areas of air quality, water quality, agricultural effects, forest productivity, materials effects, ecosystem studies, watershed studies, and human health.