Best practice in high-frequency water quality monitoring for improved management and assessment; a novel decision workflow
Series / Report no.
Open Access
Type
Journal Article
Review
Article
Review
Article
Language
en
Date
2025-03-04
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Title
Best practice in high-frequency water quality monitoring for improved management and assessment; a novel decision workflow
Translated Title
Published in
Environ Monit Assess 2025; 197(4):353
Abstract
The use of high-frequency water quality monitoring has increased over several decades. This has mostly been motivated by curiosity-driven research and has significantly improved our understanding of hydrochemical processes. Despite these scientific successes and the growth in sensor technology, the large-scale uptake of high-frequency water quality monitoring by water managers is hampered by a lack of comprehensive practical guidelines. Low-frequency hydrochemical data are still routinely used to review environmental policies but are prone to missing important event-driven processes. With a changing climate where such event-driven processes are more likely to occur and have a greater impact, the adoption of high-frequency water quality monitoring is becoming more pressing. To prepare regulators and environmental and hydrological agencies for these new challenges, this paper reviews international best practice in high-frequency data provision. As a result, we summarise the added value of high-frequency water quality monitoring, describe international best practices for sensors and analysers in the field, and evaluate the experience with high-frequency data cleaning. We propose a decision workflow that includes considerations of monitoring data needs, sensor choice, maintenance and calibration, and structured data processing. The workflow fills an important knowledge-exchange gap between research and statutory surveillance for future high-frequency water quality sensor uptake by practitioners and agencies.