Western Australia River Water Quality Status and Trends 2004-2008

2004 and 2008 assessments classify status and trends for nine water quality parameters at 232 and 255 monitoring sites, respectively, across 23 basins in Western Australia. The project was undertaken by the Water Science Branch of the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, using data collected as far back as 1998.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in total nitrogen and total phosphorus levels across 23 basins to identify nutrient pollution hotspots.
• Model the relationship between pH, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity to assess ecosystem health at 255 monitoring sites.
• Compare water quality classifications for parameters like total dissolved salts and colour between the 2004 and 2008 assessment periods.
• Map spatial distributions of status results for total suspended solids and dissolved organic carbon across Western Australian river basins.

Strengths

• Covers 255 distinct monitoring sites from the 2008 assessment update.
• Assesses nine specific water quality parameters: colour, dissolved organic carbon, dissolved oxygen, pH, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total dissolved salts, total suspended solids, and turbidity.
• Provides temporal comparisons with assessments from two periods (2004 and 2008).

Limitations

• Coverage is incomplete; only 23 of the state's 44 basins are included due to data gaps.
• Many sites assessed in 2004 were excluded from the 2008 update because of a lack of recent monitoring data.
• The dataset contains only final classifications and trends, not the underlying raw measurement time series.

Provenance

Source

Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, Water Science Branch

Collection Method

Water quality data compilation and assessment for status and trend classification.

Time Range

Assessment periods 2004 and 2008, using monitoring data collected as far back as 1998.

Freshness

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Geography

23 river basins in Western Australia, Australia.