Community Science on Missouri Lakes

Community Science/Research
Oral Presentation

Prepared by T. Thorpe, A. Argerich
University of Missouri, 302 ABNR, Columbia, Missouri, 65211, United States


Contact Information: [email protected]; 573-882-5430

ABSTRACT

The Lakes of Missouri Volunteer Program (LMVP) is a long-running water quality monitoring initiative at the University of Missouri to characterize the water quality of Missouri’s lakes and educate the public about environmental water quality issues. Beginning in 1992 with just a few volunteers in the Kansas City area, volunteers have now sampled more than 300 lake sites across the state. Retention rates among volunteers are high, with current participants averaging 8.3 years of service.
After a one-on-one training session, volunteers make field observations (water clarity, temperature) and collect water samples from their sampling locations. Volunteers process their samples at home and store them frozen until they are retrieved by LMVP staff for analysis at the University of Missouri’s Aquatic Ecology Lab. Laboratory analyses include the measurement of nutrients (total nitrogen, total phosphorus, nitrate, ammonium), chlorophyll, suspended solids, and cyanotoxins (microcystin, cylindrospermopsin).
Our Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are reviewed annually by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, our primary data user and funding agency. LMVP data appear in several published articles and databases and were among those used to develop Missouri’s numeric lake nutrient criteria. Our data continue to be used for assessment and Clean Water Act reporting.