Cost‐effectiveness methodologies for data acquisition in water quality management

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Abstract
Current water quality regulatory procedures are established in such a manner that they require sound data as a basis for action. In establishing the regulatory procedures, much emphasis has been placed on the water criteria, whereas little emphasis has been placed on developing the ways and means to provide meaningful data to enforce the criteria. The object of the study is to develop methodologies that permit the rational evaluation and design of data acquisition systems for water quality management. This must necessarily include an evaluation of the cost of a data acquisition system and its effectiveness. The evaluation and design procedure of the water quality data acquisition system is based on two major points. First, the strategy used by the managing agency must be related to a specific type or form of data. Second, the character of the streams to be managed must be carefully delineated. To relate these two points to some measure of system effectiveness, a data acquisition system model is developed. This model relates grab‐sampling frequency to the detection of pollution events. By then determining the cost of various sampling frequencies, cost‐effectiveness relationships can be developed. The procedure is applied to Colorado.

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