Water-Quality Trend Analysis for the International Red River

Year
2017
Region
Topic

Water Quality

Project Description

A basin-wide study using 10-25 years of data from 37 sites is being performed to develop an up-to-date water quality trend analysis for a variety of contaminants, such as nutrients, sulfate and chloride. This analysis uses the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) software QWTrend to effectively estimate the water quality trend, and will take into account changes in the Red River’s stream flow over the past few decades. This trend analysis fills a critical need to identify changes in water-quality across the Red River Basin while accounting for changes in streamflow. These flow changes make a fresh trend analysis available to water managers and governments to determine more accurately the best courses of action to improve water quality in the river. In addition, an interactive story map hosted on IJC’s online map service will be developed. This project is also highlighted in our IWI projects StoryMap here

Outcome
Partners

USGS, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Manitoba Sustainable Development Water Stewardship Division, North Dakota Department of Health