Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

Foundations of Water Quality and the Environment

Duration: 1 day

Delivery: In-person

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Course details

This course provides water and environmental professionals with the foundational (or refresher) knowledge and skills for the assessment and management of water quality impacts, including pollutants, monitoring strategies, and legislation that drives investment decisions.

Duration: 1 day

Delivery: In-person

Donna Murray

Donna is a C.WEM and C.Sci with over 20 years' experience in river and estuary modelling work. As a Water Quality Modeller and Trainer within the Catchment Management team at WRc,  Donna has provided training courses on Water Quality Science, Modelling and RQP / MPER software, Water Resources and the Urban Pollution Management (UPM) procedure.

Course overview

This course has been designed specifically to provide water and environmental professionals with the foundational (or refresher) knowledge and skills for the assessment and management of water quality impacts.

Understanding and managing human impacts on the water environment requires a broad understanding of pollutant sources and pathways, monitoring and control strategies, plus the legislative framework that drives management and investment decisions.

    Who can benefit?

    Delegates may include early in their career in the water or environment industries, including those not of a scientific background, looking for knowledge of the basics of water science. 

    Participants may be drawn from any area of business or service where impacts of water quality affects their decision making. For example, water companies, regulators, water quality planners and environment officers.

    Training outline

    The course enables learners to become confident in the real-world application of water quality management. Modules facilitate structured discussions where delegates can reflect on relevant contamination concerns, and exercises such as calculation of sample quality, compliance assessment of example river data, and interpretation of model outputs for use in decision-making.

    • Introduction to water quality: The background to catchment management and water quality assessments. This module will provide learners with knowledge of the sources of pollutants, pathways with which they move in the environment and how they can impact humans and ecosystems. It will also provide an understanding of the basics of hydrology and hydrogeology required to do this.
    • Water management policy & regulations: The background to regulations such as the Water Framework Directive and other legislation and standards relevant to catchment management and the management of water quality such as discharge permitting and storm overflows. Learners are provided with an overview of national regulations and where to find out more about specific water quality standards for specific scenarios.
    • Characteristics of pollutants: A synopsis of water chemistry and the characteristics of common pollutants, their sources and impacts. The concept of environmental toxicology is introduced and the benefits of this to the development of environmental quality standards is explored. Delegates also gain some insight into emerging contaminants in water.
    • Environmental monitoring programmes: An awareness of the scope of environmental monitoring programmes, sampling and analysis, and bioassessment. This provides delegates with the knowledge, skills and experience relevant to monitoring environmental pollution.
    • Water quality data assessment: Overview of the assessment of discharges to water, equipping learners with an understanding of their water quality dataset and know how to assess compliance. The background on assimilative capacity will link with the understanding of source apportionment in the catchment.
    • Introduction to water quality modelling: An introduction to the various uses and benefits of water quality models, as well as some of their limitations. Delegates are shown examples of the use of models in scenario testing to annotate their potential different applications.
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      Email me
      The course was really interesting and informative. The trainers were very knowledgeable within their subjects and obviously passionate about what they were teaching which made the course enjoyable even with the challenging aspects of the material.

      Sarah Rawlings
      MWH Treatment

      The course included a range of activities and catered for different learning styles really well. The discussions were really good. It was really well structured and engaging. The course covered a really broad range of topics, which was excellent. I would recommend to others who are just starting out.

      Course Delegate - 'Foundations of Water Quality and the Environment'

      It will allow me to be more aware of the process implications of my day to day work on organising relevant works. The course was well managed and timed. The trainers were good and well spoken. I felt they commanded the room well and were very knowledgeable.

      John Hazel
      MWH Treatment

      I have a better understanding of the policy and legislation behind our treatment work outfalls and will help me to ensure compliance with our construction projects. The material and activities were engaging throughout. Well suited training to my experience. Had a good refresher at the start, but moved on to advanced sections which helped gain a more detailed understanding. The trainer and assistants did a great job at answering questions and helping out in practical sections.

      Dan Swindells
      MWH Treatment

      It was a good refresher and I also learned more about things I only sort of heard/know before. I can better understand the context when people are explaining certain things.

      Course Delegate - 'Foundations of Water Quality and the Environment'

      This gave a greater appreciation of ensuring that our teams when working out on site have minimal impact whilst carrying out their works.

      Course Delegate - 'Foundations of Water Quality and the Environment'

      [The trainers] were brilliant, very engaging, polite, knowledgeable. You really took care of everyone, [and] left space for interaction and engagement and thanked people for their involvement, those small things mean a lot and also gives people the confident to speak up again.

      Course Delegate - 'Foundations of Water Quality and the Environment'

      Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

      WRc's water quality assessment, monitoring and modelling services

      From rainfall modelling to micropollutant removal, our highly skilled scientists, toxicologists, hydrologists and data scientists provide a range of water quality series for suppliers, dischargers and regulators in a variety of needs.

      Find out more

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      Created by potrace 1.16, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2019

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