Environmental Monitoring

Environmental monitoring stations provide large quantities of information with both continuous and periodic measurements. The examples below demonstrate some fairly simple, but very useful workbooks that were automatically created with DataWolff from EPA STORET data and from meteorological data. Other tasks DataWolff has automated with environmental monitoring data include: computing and plotting exceedance curves; computing hourly and daily averages from data sampled on a five-minute frequency; synchronizing data with disparate time stamps; and providing interactive Excel charts that enable you to visually remove outliers and correct dissolved oxygen data that are skewed because of fouled sensors.

EPA STORET Data

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides water quality data from many monitoring sites located throughout the country that are available for download from their STORET web site (http://www.epa.gov/storet). Manually creating profile and trend plots, and performing other analyses with these data requires significant amounts of time. Examples of workbooks are attached below that were automatically created with DataWolff from a STORET legacy data file. The workbooks contain animated profiles for both dissolved oxygen and temperature in a forebay reservoir.

The Excel workbooks referenced in the links below contain charts with animation, zoom, and scroll features that require macros. Follow these steps to download and run the workbooks:

  1. download and unzip the workbook;
  2. start Excel (must be Excel 2000 version 9.0 or later);
  3. check your Excel security settings which must be set at medium security or lower for the macros to be enabled; and
  4. load the workbooks.

Click here for instructions on adjusting your security settings.

Meteorological Data

Many meteorological stations provide hourly measurements of ambient weather conditions which include air temperature, dew point temperature, cloud cover, and precipitation.  Download the attached workbook to view a trend chart created with DataWolff that enables you to zoom-in and scroll through three years of data.

 

WolffWare Stationery