The first part of this document is the guidance, which includes an overview of urban water quality. The guidance provided in this report particularly focuses on the following methods for sampling urban streams and stormwater:
- Manual grab sampling;
- Grab samples using Nalgene bottles;
- DGTs; and
- Automatic samplers.
We discuss the potential uses, advantages and disadvantages of these four different sampling methods for common water quality variables, sampling locations and resource requirements; then evaluate the suitability of each across four common water quality monitoring objectives, taking into account both accuracy and cost requirements.
The second part of the guidance manual describes two phases of trials undertaken which provided the basis for preparing the guidance.