What is coastal, freshwater and groundwater monitoring?
Coastal, freshwater and groundwater monitoring incorporates salt and freshwater environments, as well as coastal and land-based water monitoring activities.
From ecological surveys to environmental investigations, mangrove and seagrass health monitoring, soil and groundwater assessments for contaminants and more, these water quality services are performed by Trinity’s highly qualified scientists and marine experts, several of whom have specialist PhDs in related fields.
Who needs coastal, freshwater and groundwater monitoring?
Coastal, freshwater and groundwater monitoring services may be required by any companies operating in and around waterways, as well as any companies whose land-based operations may impact inland or coastal water bodies. This includes where operations may impact or contaminate soil quality, which subsequently has the potential to flow into waterways.
Trinity has provided coastal, freshwater or groundwater monitoring services for a range of organisations including:
- Local councils
- State and federal government departments
- Port authorities
- Resource and mining companies
- Developers
- Sewage treatment plants and landfills
- Coastal management, protection and research organisations and not-for-profits
- Airports, fire-training grounds and other PFAS-contaminated sites.
Why Choose Trinity
- Highly qualified scientists on staff
- In-house research team develops custom equipment for targeted monitoring tasks
- Innovative solutions that integrate new ideas with proven approaches
Trinity capabilities
Trinity’s coastal, freshwater and groundwater monitoring services include regular monitoring and monitoring plans, surveys and special investigations, and a range of supplementary assessments that ensure comprehensive environmental management.
Monitoring plans and scheduled monitoring
- Design, implementation and reporting of ambient and compliance water quality monitoring plans (WQMP) and receiving environment monitoring plans (REMP)
- Design, implementation and reporting of mangrove and seagrass health monitoring, including long-term habitat changes and impact from acute events
- Continuous and discrete water quality monitoring options
Surveys, investigations and environmental assessments
- Design, implementation and reporting of marine and freshwater ecological surveys, including coral reefs, subtidal and intertidal soft sediment macroinvertebrate communities, rock reef communities and pelagic systems
- Environmental investigations, including marine and freshwater pest surveys, water quality investigations, ecotoxicological analysis and contaminant risk assessments
- Soil and groundwater monitoring assessments, including for contaminants such as PFAS, metal(loid)s, hydrocarbons, pesticides and herbicides
- Air quality assessments (e.g. odour modelling, greenhouse gas inventories and health risk assessment), acoustics (including noise and vibration), and lighting services
Reporting and output
- Comprehensive reports, including univariate and multivariate statistical analysis, interpretation of results and recommendations for ongoing actions
- GIS habitat mapping combining field-gathered, ground-truthed data and georeferenced aerial imagery
- High quality underwater, land-based and aerial videos and stills
- Telemetered data automatically deconfounded via a real-time SMART algorithm in our cloud databases
- Ability to view updated data after every field reading via a customised secure project dashboard
Our equipment and technology
Our equipment and technology includes:
- Commercial in-survey vessels, operated by our in-house coxswains
- Field equipment including underwater still and video cameras, benthic sled tows, underwater and aerial drones (ROV), fish and plankton survey tools, baited remote underwater video stations (BRUVs), sedimentation loggers, stainless steel benthic grab samplers and side scan sonars for bathymetry surveys
- Laboratory facilities for sample preparation, calibration, organisms, taxonomy and image analysis, fume hoods, stereo and compound microscopes, and image analysis software
- NATA-accredited stack testing laboratory, and monitoring of ambient air, noise, vibration and lighting
- Computational modelling of meteorology, air dispersion (e.g. CALPUFF, AERMOD and GRAL) and noise propagation (e.g.SoundPLAN, CadnaA and INSUL.
How we work
Our team of full-time research staff, certified coxswains and marine professionals use dedicated laboratory facilities, specialised field equipment and a fleet of commercial vessels to provide readily mobilised field technical services.
Our in-house expertise and equipment mean we are in a strong position to respond quickly if incidents occur. Meanwhile, our professional service allows organisations to take prompt and comprehensive action in response to any environmental concerns, which can be vital in a) minimising potential environmental harm and b) subsequently demonstrating to regulators that all possible responses were deployed. We work closely with in-house teams to tailor an approach and design a mitigation and remediation solution to suit your needs.
We also work actively with our clients to develop proactive water and environmental management strategies that include establishing benchmarks and tracking long-term patterns through strucutured monitoring programs and regular assessments.
