Water quality sampling in the UKWe
have been investigating surface and ground water quality concerns
for many reasons. These include environmental protection, to
initiate remediation, to establish cause, and sometimes
responsibility or to identify treatment needs for potable,
irrigation or industrial supplies.
Our expertise covers field-testing and evaluation of laboratory
results for both standard and the rarer suites of water quality
chemistry determinands. We undertake periodic and regular testing
and evaluation covering nutrients through to pesticides, from BOD
through to endocrine-disrupters. We have complementary skills in
ecological assessments of water quality, including using aquatic
invertebrate, diatom, algae and macrophytes surveys to assess
whether the ecological status is affected by organic enrichment,
eutrophication or low flows, as appropriate.
For ground water we use hydrochemistry to evaluate ground water
flows as well as to predict potential long-term contamination of
abstractions, for example from nitrates or point-source
contaminants. Water quality parameters are used to identify sources
of water.
Our sampling and analytic expertise is backed by considerable
modelling capability. We use commercially available software as
well as sophisticated programs developed in-house, such as Hydro-3D
and the ICMM finite-difference groundwater model.
With such tools we model thermal plumes, dispersion of effluent
from long-sea outfalls through to the development and control of
algal blooms in confined water bodies. We use SimCat to predict
water quality in river systems and we have developed an in-house
stochastic water quality model with a similar theoretical basis but
with the additional capacity for multiple correlations between
parameters and physical location.
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