Water Quality Monitoring in Story County
Since 2020, Prairie Rivers of Iowa has been working with Story County Conservation, the City of Ames, and other local partners to test water quality in streams and lakes around the county. This locally-led effort includes monthly lab testing, biweekly volunteer monitoring, data analysis and more!
Reports
Each year, we put out a report summarizing data from both volunteer testing and lab testing. The 2025 report is now complete!
Lab Testing
Staff from Prairie Rivers, the City of Ames, and volunteers collect monthly water samples from 15 sites around the county which the City of Ames Water and Pollution Control Laboratory tests for nutrients, sediment, and bacteria. Results are posted here and updated within two weeks of sampling.
Archived results from 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Volunteer Programs
Story County Conservation has assembled water testing kits that it is making available for volunteers to do regular monitoring of streams around the county. Last year, volunteers logged more than 900 data sheets! You can explore our 2025 monitoring results in this interactive map!
The volunteers use training materials and a portal for data entry that were developed by the Izaak Walton League for it’s Save Our Streams program. Nitrate Watch and Salt Watch are easy ways to get started.
Since 2020, Prairie Rivers of Iowa has organized supplies and volunteers in order to continue the Ioway Creek Watershed Coalition’s tradition of twice-a-year volunteer “snapshot” events, testing many creeks on the same day. Recently we’ve been holding them on the same day as Polk County Conservation to cover a broader area! Read about our spring 2025 snapshot or check out the interactive map.
Sensors
How’s the water quality now? This widget connects to the Iowa Water Quality Information System and updated hourly with data from a nitrate sensor in Walnut Creek (near Kelley).
The sensor on Ioway Creek has been removed. Help restore funding to IIHR Hydroscience and Engineering for Iowa’s nitrate sensor network!
Making Sense of the Data
Is water quality improving? If it’s improving, is it because of conservation efforts or just the weather? Those are a harder question to answer than you might expect!
We presented a conference poster illustrating some of the issues involved, and it’s a common topic on our blog.
But we’re developing some tools and tricks to make sense of our findings!
Coordination and Planning
Prairie Rivers partnered with Story County and 8 other organizations to develop a ten-year Water Quality Monitoring & Interpretation Plan for Story County. Regular communication between the various groups testing water helps avoid duplication and leads to new opportunities to improve water quality. Planning for how data can be used over the long-term ensures that we get the most value from our time and effort. Read the plan here.
We’ve also been making connections and sharing information with other groups around the state that do water monitoring.
