MassWateR: Improving quality control, analysis, and sharing of water quality data

PLoS One. 2023 Nov 1;18(11):e0293737. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293737. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

The long-term protection and restoration of aquatic resources depends on robust monitoring data; data that require systematic quality control and analysis tools. The MassWateR R package facilitates quality control, analysis, and data sharing for discrete surface water quality data collected by monitoring programs of various size and technical capacity. The tools were developed to address regional needs for programs in Massachusetts, USA, but the principles and outputs can be applicable to monitoring data collected anywhere. Users can create quality control reports, perform outlier analyses, and assess trends by season, date, and site for more than 40 parameters. Users can also prepare data for submission to the United States Environmental Protection Agency Water Quality Exchange, thus sharing data to the largest water quality database in the United States. The automated and reproducible workflow offered by MassWateR is expected to increase the quantity and quality of publicly available data to support the management of aquatic resources.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Data Accuracy
  • Databases, Factual
  • Environmental Monitoring*
  • Quality Control
  • United States
  • Water Quality*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by an Exchange Network grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency awarded to the Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership, Grant No. OS-84029801-0. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.