4.1 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.

4.2 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.

4.3 This guide is used during the planning process of developing, designing, and re-evaluating a sediment monitoring program.

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 U.S. 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, health, and environmental practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.

1.7 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardization established in the Decision on Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommendations issued by the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee.