Monitoring Missouri Lakes since 1992
About the Lakes of Missouri Volunteer Program
The LMVP is a project within the Aquatic Ecology Lab at the University of Missouri. We began in 1992 with four lakes in the Kansas City area and have since have expanded statewide. To date, hundreds of volunteers have monitored more than 300 sampling sites at over 140 lakes in the state. Many of our lakes have several sample sites. Table Rock Lake, for example, has been monitored at 31 locations.
You can see where we are currently sampling by viewing the map on our homepage.
Our goals are:
To determine the current water quality of Missouri's lakes
To monitor for changes in water quality over time
To educate the public about aquatic ecology and water quality issues.
What we measure
We measure many aspects of water quality, from temperature and clarity to cyanotoxins (so-called “bluegreen algae” toxins)
Water temperature
Thermal stratification (the depth and thickness of water layers, recorded at some sites)
Water clarity
Chlorophyll (algae’s photosynthetic pigment)
Nutrients (total nitrogen, total phosphorus, nitrate, ammonium, total dissolved nitrogen)
Suspended sediment (total suspended solids)
Cyanotoxins (microcystin, cylindrospermopsin)
Water samples collected by volunteers are stored frozen and analyzed at the Aquatic Ecology Lab at the University of Missouri.