Water Resources Inventories

The NPS Natural Resource Challenge (NRC) provides funding for water quality monitoring within NPS units. The purpose is to track the attainment of the Service's long-term water quality strategic goal of significantly reducing pollution in park water bodies. Specifically, the goal was for 85% of park units to have unimpaired water quality by September 30, 2005. The NPS is also committed to preserving existing pristine water quality in parks, including waters classified as Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRW's) or state-equivalent listed waters.

In FY2003, SCPN water quality monitoring efforts included: partnering with USGS/WRD to synthesize electronically available water quality data for SCPN parks, and completing water resource scoping and data mining in all SCPN parks to identify monitoring needs. In FY2004, the network continued funding of the USGS/WRD water quality data synthesis (to be completed in FY2005). NPS/WRD provided the USGS/WRD additional funding to conduct Level 1 baseline water-quality inventories of 57 key water bodies in 13 SCPN units during CY05. These projects, in conjunction with existing information sources, are providing a sound basis for identifying and prioritizing long-term water quality monitoring needs. Visit our Products page for water resources-related reports.