About Water Quality

Russian Riverkeeper manages and assists with a variety of water quality monitoring projects to improve watershed understanding and add valuable information to public policy decisions. Most of our work is performed with trained volunteer water quality monitors. Training volunteer monitors is a cost-effective way to gather defensible water quality data and increases stewardship of our river.

On-The-River

Russian Riverkeeper’s On-The-River (OTR) program is the heart of our organization and consists of maintaining a constant presence on our River to bring information about the River to the community.

The OTR program also empowers the community by providing training to gather information on water quality, riparian health, aquatic and terrestrial wildlife, land use and human activity.

Riverkeeper also has the opportunity to take on the completion, updating, and management of the Russian River “KRIS” GIS Information System, which is a powerful tool for compiling data from Riverkeeper’s OTR program and other sources in the watershed. This information is used for reporting, enforcement and advocacy. All of the data collected by Russian Riverkeeper through its OTR program is used to educate the community, industry, and the regulatory agencies about the issues facing the River.

Why Monitoring Is Necessary

Volunteer doing water monitoring

Water quality monitoring builds stewardship by engaging and educating citizen volunteers and allows for better public policy decisions by increasing water quality data. Gathering water quality data is vital due to budget constraints on regulatory agencies that create data gaps and in order to make sound public policy decisions. Data gaps sometimes delay identification of problems or understate their severity. Lack of sufficient water quality data makes for uninformed public policy decisions as well.

Russian Riverkeeper manages and assists with a variety of water quality monitoring projects to improve watershed understanding and add valuable information to public policy decisions. Most of our work is performed with trained volunteer water quality monitors. Training volunteer monitors is a cost effective way to gather defensible water quality data and increases stewardship of our river.

Russian River First Flush

In the Russian River watershed our Coastal California semi-arid climate gives us long dry summers and rain only during the winter months allowing pollutants to accumulate on land where they are washed into creeks with the first rain of winter. This first rain event is often referred to as "First Flush", when research has shown stormwater runoff can represent "the worst case scenario" in terms of stormwater pollution. Gathering first flush water quality data throughout a watershed gives municipal officials, regulatory agencies and citizens pertinent information on how the sum of all our activities impacts our waterways. Each year First Flush attracts dozens of new volunteers primarily because citizens are growing more concerned about local water quality. Download the reports in our Resources section.