Environmental monitoring data is imperative in assessing baseline condition, identifying existing contamination sources impacting project sites as well as forecasting potential impacts of development as part of the environmental impact assessment process. It should also be used to inform asset management, test mitigation measures / treatment efficacy, ensure accountability and transparency for industry to regulatory standards and drive sustainable design criteria for new developments.

Monitoring programs, however, too often seem to run with unclear objectives on the basis of ‘its what we’ve always done’ protocols. Knowledge on choices in collection methodologies, sampling frequency, site selections, measured parameters and data analysis / storage are not always clearly justified and can become lost when key decision-making staff leave organisations. This makes it even more problematic to make robust and defendable changes.

A combination of new legislation / guidelines, advances in equipment technology and improved analytical techniques combined with changing social attitudes and different pressures on the environment mean that we should question traditional approaches. There are opportunities for rationalisation of existing programs and for targeting more project-specific data collection when designing new programs.

This talk introduces a range of ‘smarter’ water monitoring techniques by way of case-studies to address what we need to obtain from our environmental monitoring programmes and some guidance on how to go about achieving this.