Best Practices: Water Quality Monitoring

BEST PRACTICES

Sense-able Water Quality Monitoring

Yes, it IS all about the water.

These days, water quality is more critical than ever to your golf course’s sustainability and general well-being — and to keeping players filling the tee sheet.

That’s why Audubon International’s water quality monitoring program is central to all of its certifications and a valuable tool to assess the effectiveness of your Best Management Practices.

In addition to zeroing in on the source of your irrigation water to inform your agronomic management decisions — certainly key to your day-to-day on-course activities as well — this monitoring program employs sound scientific principles to help confirm that you are employing the correct management strategies. That data, in turn, helps you communicate to all stakeholders that your water features and sources are in healthy balance.

Your monitoring success is based on a two-pronged approach: Visual and olfactory (sight and smell) inspection, and water quality sampling and testing. Employ both on a regular basis and you’ll get the information you need to make your management efforts as effective as possible.

You need just a bit of time and little to no equipment to do a thorough sight-and-smell water quality survey. It simply involves looking at the water and surrounding land and noting what you see and smell, including invasive aquatic species. But “simple” doesn’t mean inconsequential; indeed, it’s an important aspect of environmental monitoring. By collecting information on a regular basis, you’ll find a baseline of normal conditions and record changes over time.

When you “watch” your water bodies, make sure to write down any abnormalities noted, as well as the date, time of day, previous and current weather conditions, previous chemical applications in the area, and any other changes that could cause the abnormality. Patterns will

emerge, as well potential courses of action.

As you’d expect, quality sampling programs involve a deeper data dive than visual inspections. The information they render will help you assess the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of water on your property — and how well those characteristics support the health of aquatic environments. You’ll also get a clear take on the sustainability of your turf management activities and the success of your conservation efforts.

Your monitoring program can vary from simple (limited number of sampling locations, limited number of parameters) to more complex (extensive sampling of different kinds of water features, greater number of parameters, stream biodiversity surveys, etc.).

To best assess the impact of your effects, you’ll need to collect upstream and downstream samples — where water enters and exits the course. Topographical maps of your course will help you identify the best spots for sampling. You can then identify them by GPS coordinates and use the same locations for each sampling event — a valuable baseline for identifying any changes or trends in water quality over time. Your irrigation water source can sometimes provide your upstream sample depending on the topography of your course.

Once you’ve got your sampling program dialed in, repeat it quarterly during the first year or two, once each season to gain approval of the Water Quality Management certification component. Armed with baseline data, you can switch to semi-annual sampling unless problems arise such as an unintended chemical release or an acute environmental issue (algal bloom, fish kill, etc.). You will need the results of the semi-annual sampling to obtain ACSP recertification.

You and your team can analyze water quality with do-it-yourself test kits and meters, or via commercial and/or university laboratories. Each method has pros and cons, so be sure to evaluate them as you develop your water monitoring program development. For example, meters will measure water temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, and conductivity/salinity. Though easy to use, they are more expensive than test kits and require regular calibration and maintenance for consistent accuracy. Field test kits are less expensive but the results may not reach regulatory agency standards and can be prone to cross contamination issues.

For the ACSP, water quality testing should include the following:

Physical Characteristics: dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature and specific conductivity

Nutrients: Total nitrogen (the sum of kjeldahl nitrogen and nitrate-nitrite) and total phosphorus

For more information regarding water quality monitoring, consult Chapter 6 of Audubon International’s new 3rd Edition “A Guide to Environmental Stewardship on the Golf Course” document.

Questions? Feel free to call our office at (518) 767-9051.