Johnson, Elyse, Keystone Water Resources Center, PO Box 43, Lemont, PA, 16851, elyse@keystonewaterresources.org; Orr, Lexie, Biology Department, Bucknell University, 1 Dent Drive, Lewisburg, PA, 17837.
Long-term, high-resolution water quality and quantity data is an essential foundation for adaptive watershed management and land-use planning, yet such monitoring networks face real challenges related to financial and operational sustainability. The Keystone Water Resources Center’s (KWRC) 27 year-old Spring Creek Water Resources Monitoring Project (WRMP) in Centre County, Pennsylvania, is a resilient long-term water monitoring network that unites municipal, private and non-profit interests around a shared environmental resource.
Since 1998, our mission has been to collect scientifically useful water data, make that data available to the public, and educate about our surface and groundwater resources. We record stream flow, temperature, chemical and nutrient content across 36 monitoring stations (22 surface water, 8 springs, 3 wells) in the karst Spring Creek Watershed.
The project’s funding pools resources from local municipalities, water and wastewater authorities, academic institutions, and non-profit conservation groups. This collaborative model is sustained by the critical, public utility of its data. This supports local decision-making and is routinely utilized by a wide array of end-users, including local government planners, water authorities, consulting firms, and federal agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC).
Visit keystonewaterresources.org to view our methods, request data and access annual reports.
Water Monitoring , Adaptive Watershed Management , Operational Sustainability , Collaborative Model