Chemistry and Flow Monitoring Orientation

Help us monitor our region’s waters!

Enjoy being outdoors while measuring the quality of local rivers and creeks! Learn how to collect water samples, measure stream flow, and record water chemistry measurements. No prior experience needed. After completing this orientation, volunteers are expected to commit to at least 4 sampling trips during the growing season (April through September) to designated monitoring sites in Washtenaw, Wayne, and Livingston counties. During each sampling trip, volunteers spend 2-4 hours in the field on average.

Explore the chemistry data collected by our program by visiting our Chemistry Dashboard. Real-time water level and flow data is also available for many of our monitoring sites on our Open-Storm site thanks to our partnership with the University of Michigan’s Digital Water Laboratory’s water level and flow sensors and the velocity measurements taken by our volunteers.