Photo by Evelyn Achurch
World Water Day is Saturday, March 22. While technically it’s a day to celebrate the importance of protecting freshwater around the world, in the Port Royal Sound, we are celebrating the very salty water that makes up our estuary! Normal ocean water has a salinity level of 33-37 ppt or parts of dissolved salt per thousand parts of water. In the Port Royal Sound, you can travel almost 30 miles inland and still get ocean-level salinity measurements! Part of the reason why is that we have HUGE tides that push water into the Sound from the Atlantic. Another reason is that, unlike many other estuaries worldwide, we don’t have large rivers that bring freshwater into the Port Royal Sound from further inland. This makes the Port Royal Sound almost like an inland sea, which is pretty unique!
As part of our mission to conserve the Port Royal Sound, an important and growing priority of the Port Royal Sound Foundation is supporting water quality monitoring around the watershed. We can tell a lot about the health of our Sound and about changes taking place by taking regular measurements of the different characteristics of our water. In addition to measuring how salty the water is (salinity), it is also important that we track changes in the following parameters:
- Temperature – how warm or cool the water is
- Dissolved oxygen – how much oxygen is in the water
- pH – how acidic or basic the water
- Total Suspended Solids (TSS) – how much matter is floating in the water
- Chlorophyll-A – the amount of algae growing in the water
- Bacteria – the presence and amount of different types of bacteria living in the water
Because the Port Royal Sound is a pretty unique system, we can’t tell a lot about the health of our water by measuring these parameters just once or just in one location. We need regular measurements in many locations to understand what is ‘normal’ for this system – what we consider a baseline. Once we establish baselines for different parameters in different seasons and in different locations, we can detect when conditions are changing.
The state of South Carolina has been monitoring water conditions in the Port Royal Sound for decades, so we already know the baseline conditions for many areas! However, as change and growth in the Port Royal Sound watershed increase, it’s important that we increase our monitoring efforts to detect change before it becomes a problem. That’s where you can help!
The Port Royal Sound Foundation offers volunteer opportunities to help contribute to water quality monitoring around the Port Royal Sound. Depending on how much time and effort you want to contribute, there are two options:
- SC Adopt-A-Stream — SC Department of Environmental Services supports a statewide network of volunteers monitoring locations throughout the state. Port Royal Sound Foundation is a training partner for this network and will be offering training sessions at the Maritime Center on Friday, April 4, and Friday, May 16. Once trained, volunteers are invited to monitor a location monthly and submit their data to the state. PRSF has equipment you can borrow for this program. You can learn more and register at www.scadoptastream.org.
- PRS Conservation Network – Water Quality Monitoring— To get more frequent data about strategic locations around the PRS watershed, PRSF and USCB have worked with the state to develop a new water quality monitoring program that engages volunteers to monitor specific sites with more advanced equipment and more frequently. We are just getting going with this new program. If you are interested in learning more, you can sign up for updates on the Citizen Science page and we’ll be sending out information – https://portroyalsoundfoundation.org/citizen-science/.