Program Goals

The overall project goal is to establish a long-term monitoring program that improves our ability to address watershed quality issues in the Fox River Basin.

Goals of the School-Based Monitoring Program:

1. Enhance student knowledge and understanding of land use impacts on water quality and stream ecosystems.
2. Develop a stream integrity database targeting subwatersheds of the Fox River that helps understand changes over time and contributes towards the design of future land management strategies.
3. Enhance teacher capacity to teach watershed science by providing hands-on training in water quality sampling techniques.
4. Foster a relationship between high-school students, teachers, university faculty, and agency professionals.
5. Establish a program that has the potential to grow and attract additional funding to sustain and enhance activities.

Goals of the Storm Event and Continuous Monitoring Activities:
(Major Contributors: USGS, UW-Green Bay, UW-Milwaukee, and GBMSD)

1. Compare relative contributions of phosphorus and suspended sediment between watersheds and source areas within the Lower Fox River subbasin and UF04 in the Upper Fox subbasin.
2. Better understand cause and effect relationships through event and continuous monitoring.
3. Analyze trends for each USGS site, and compare relative changes between sites with time.
4. Assess the validity and ability of models to reliably estimate stream flow and loads from different watersheds on an event, monthly, and annual basis.