Significance and Use

This guide is intended to be used in the planning stage or phase of developing a sediment monitoring program. This guide is an assembly of the components common to all aspects of watershed sediment monitoring and fulfills a need in the development of a common framework for a better coordinated and a more unified approach to sediment monitoring in watersheds.

The user of this guide is not assumed to be a trained technical practitioner in the water quality, sedimentation, or hydrology fields. The intended users are managers and planners who need information to develop a water quality monitoring program or project with an emphasis in sediment and hydrology. Sediment specialists will also find information on procedures, equipment, methodology, and operations to conduct a monitoring program.

This guide is used during the planning process of developing, designing, and reevaluating a sediment monitoring program.

1. Scope

1.1 Purpose This guide is intended to provide general guidance on a watershed monitoring program directed toward sediment. The guide offers a series of general steps without setting forth a specific course of action. It gives advice for establishing a monitoring program, not an implementation program.

1.2 Sedimentation as referred to in this guide is the detachment, entrainment, transportation, and deposition of eroded soil and rock particles. Specific types or parameters of sediment may include: suspended sediment, bedload, bed material, turbidity, wash load, sediment concentration, total load, sediment deposits, particle size distribution, sediment volumes and particle chemistry. Monitoring may include not only sediments suspended in water but sediments deposited in fields, floodplains, and channel bottoms.

1.3 This guide applies to surface waters as found in streams and rivers; lakes, ponds, reservoirs, estuaries, and wetlands.

1.4 Limitations This guide does not establish a standard procedure to follow in all situations and it does not cover the detail necessary to define all of the needs of a particular monitoring objective or project. Other standards and guides included in the reference and standard sections describe in detail the procedures, equipment, operations, and site selection for collecting, measuring, analyzing, and monitoring sediment and related constituants.

1.5 Additional ASTM and US Geological Survey standards applicable to sediment monitoring are listed in Appendix X1 and Appendix X2. Due to the large number of optional standards and procedures involved in sediment monitoring, most individual standards are not referenced in this document. Standards and procedures have been grouped in the appendices according to the type of analyses or sampling that would be required for a specific type of measurement or monitoring.

1.6 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.

2. Referenced Documents (purchase separately) The documents listed below are referenced within the subject standard but are not provided as part of the standard.

ASTM Standards

D1129 Terminology Relating to Water

D4410 Terminology for Fluvial Sediment

D4411 Guide for Sampling Fluvial Sediment in Motion

D4581 Guide for Measurement of Morphologic Characteristics of Surface Water Bodies

D4823 Guide for Core Sampling Submerged, Unconsolidated Sediments

D5851 Guide for Planning and Implementing a Water Monitoring Program

Keywords

best management practices; BMP; environmental indicators; estuary; lakes; monitoring; nonpoint source pollution; point source pollution; reservoirs; sediment; sediment monitoring; sediment transport; surface water; water monitoring; water quality; water quantity; watershed; watershed monitoring;

ICS Code

ICS Number Code 13.020.99 (Other standards related to environmental protection)

DOI: 10.1520/D6145-97R12

ASTM International is a member of CrossRef.

ASTM D6145