Biological Assessment of Water Quality

Catalog description

This course is an in-depth study of assessment of water quality by analyzing biological and chemical data. This course may include topics and case studies from the following list: Compare and contrast biological and chemical techniques for assessing water quality Physical and chemical properties of water Connecting flows and water quality Nutrient pollution Point and non-point sources Effects of petroleum pollution from extraction, transportation, refining, and combustion on biological systems SOPs, industry, and government standard practices and procedures for analyzing water quality Species richness, species evenness, and rank abundance curves Techniques from microbiology Plants as assessment tools Cladocerans and other zooplankton in laboratory or field Macro invertebrates as indicators Fighting Back Against Invasive Plants Watch-dogging Wetlands Mitigation Tackling the Dead Zone & Restoring the Mississippi Volunteer monitoring helps identify problems and improve clean-up. Lecture 3 hours, laboratory 3 hours. This course includes several required field trips.