Swan Lake, a backwater lake of the Illinois River, is covered with ice

This winter NGRREC aquatic ecologists with the Illinois Natural History Survey will collect water quality samples and data from selected habitats in Pool 26 of the Mississippi River and some of its tributaries including the Illinois River, Piasa Creek, Dardenne Creek, Peruque Creek, and the Cuivre River. 

Water quality samples and data collected from these areas are used in the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS) Long Term Resource Monitoring (LTRM). LTRM is one component of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Environmental Management Program (EMP) that was authorized under the Water Resources Development Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-662).  This program is now more commonly known as the Upper Mississippi River Restoration-Environmental Management Program (UMRR-EMP). 

LTRM is carried out in cooperation with five UMRS states including Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin.  Congress has declared the UMRS to be both a nationally significant ecosystem and a nationally significant commercial navigation system.  The mission of the LTRM is to provide decision makers with information for maintaining the UMRS as a sustainable large river ecosystem given its multiple-use character.  The long-term goals of the LTRM are to understand the system, determine resource trends and effects, develop management alternatives, manage information, and develop useful products.

LTRM water quality monitoring uses two sampling designs. A relatively small number of fixed sites are monitored every 14-28 days, and a larger number of randomly selected locations are sampled at seasonal intervals (winter, spring, summer, and fall). The purpose of fixed sites is to track conditions at specific locations over time whereas the purpose of seasonally randomly selected locations is to give unbiased estimates that can be extrapolated to specific habitat strata or the entire pool (Soballe and Fischer 2004).

Water quality monitoring in the LTRM emphasizes basic limnological characteristics that pertain to productivity, the suitability of habitat for aquatic organisms and the movement of sediment and materials within the system (Hynes 1970). LTRM water quality monitoring includes only a small subset of important limnological variables; parameters of importance primarily for human consumptive uses are not measured.  Some of the main limnological variables measured in LTRM sampling include: dissolved oxygen, water temperature, pH, conductivity, water clarity/turbidity, suspended solids, nitrogen, phosphorus, silica, sulfate, and chlorophyll-a.

Long Term Resource Monitoring in the UMRS also includes fisheries and aquatic vegetation.  Significant amounts of samples and data have been consistently collected within the LTRM since 1993.   The information gathered as part of the LTRM has contributed significantly to our scientific understanding of this complex system through monitoring and research.  The UMRR-EMP and the LTRM component have served as a model for other aquatic ecosystem restoration efforts both nationally and internationally.

More info on the LTRM can be found online at:

http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/ltrmp.html

References:

Hynes, H. B. N. 1970. The ecology of running waters. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada. 555 pp.

Soballe, D.M., and J.R. Fischer. 2004. Long Term Resource Monitoring Program Procedures: Water quality monitoring. U.S. Geological Survey, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, La Crosse, Wisconsin, March 2004. Technical Report LTRMP 2004-T002-1 (Ref. 95-P002-5). 73 pp. + Appendixes A-