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Upper Mississippi River Water Quality Assessment

Upper Mississippi River Water Quality data supplement which includes some tributary water quality data up to 2005 is now available.

 

Upper Mississippi River Water Quality Assessment Report distributed in March 2002

Upper Mississippi River Water Quality Assessment report coverUS EPA Region 5 and the Upper Mississippi River Conservation CommitteeExit EPA are pleased to distribute this report, which is the product of a multi-agency work group. Our mission was to identify, compile, and analyze the available Upper Mississippi River (UMR) water quality data for scientists, public health officials, businesses, citizens, and decision-makers at all levels, for evaluation and management of the river in the future. Beginning in 1999, available UMR water quality data were collected from federal, state, and local agencies that conducted monitoring on the river. The major objectives were to increase coordination and cooperation among monitoring agencies, to develop a unified database of relevant water quality information, and to use these data to begin a systematic assessment of the water quality of the UMR. The river reach included in this evaluation extends from Anoka, Minnesota (just upstream of Minneapolis/St. Paul) to the Ohio River -- a distance of 872 river miles (RM). The data submitted were collected at a total of 106 monitoring stations.

We compiled three databases. The first ("mainstem water quality universe") includes inorganic chemistry data from samples collected near or in the main channel of the river during the years 1953 through 1999. The primary focus of the current assessment was on summer (June 1 to September 15) water quality data, collected over the twenty-year period, 1980 through 1999. Consequently, our second database is a summer data subset extracted from the complete database (universe). The third database consists of fish tissue contaminant data on polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlordane, and mercury collected throughout the UMR during the years 1970 through 1998.

Temporal and spatial (longitudinal) evaluation of 11 water quality parameters was conducted by plotting the entire summer data set by river mile over four, 5-year intervals. Data were segmented into 15 river reaches by utilizing hydrologic unit codes. Boxplots were prepared of the segmented data to broadly compare water quality differences over different reaches of the river. Several parameters exhibit distinct longitudinal profiles and changes over time.

The report is available below in PDF file format either as a single file ("Complete Report") or by individual sections. You will need the free Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more. The accompanying data files are available in multiple formats. A summary of the Assessment was presented as a poster in May 2002.

 

A Note on the Data File Formats

Comma-delimited text (or comma-separated values): A simple ASCII text format universally used for transferring data between spreadsheet (e.g., Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Excel, Quattro Pro) and database management (e.g., Lotus Approach, Microsoft Access, dBase) applications. Each data row from the original table is expressed as a line in the text file, with individual values separated by commas and set off with quotes when necessary. The example applications above, and most others that handle data, can readily open or import files in this format.

Zipped: A common compressed format that can incorporate a single or multiple files. Zipping removes redundant information and reduces file sizes (and download times), but retains all of the original data. After downloading, files in this format must be expanded ("unzipped") using any one of several widely available utilities (e.g., Winzip, Zipmagic).

National Monitoring Conference logoOne of the coauthors presented a brief summary of the above report, as a poster entitled, "Results from Upper Mississippi River Water Quality Assessment," at the third National Monitoring Conference, in Madison, Wisconsin, May 20-23, 2002. The conference was sponsored by the National Water Quality Monitoring CouncilExit EPA and was attended by several hundred water quality professionals from local, State, and Federal agencies, as well as by university staff, consultants, and equipment manufacturers. The Council provides a national forum to coordinate consistent and scientifically defensible water quality monitoring methods and strategies. An abstract of the report (PDF) is available, as well as the complete conference proceedings (PDF), both as PDF files.


 

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