California EPA has developed an environmental monitoring expert knowledge system for its Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP). California's State Water Resources Board requires that all funded monitoring projects in SWAMP have acceptable QAPPs based on U.S. EPA's format and criteria. SWAMP determined that an expert knowledge system was needed to help grant applicants work through the process of writing an acceptable QAPP and Instant Reference Sources, Inc. was selected to develop the software.
Dr. Lawrence H. Keith worked very closely with the SWAMP Quality Assurance Team and incorporated the knowledge, experience, and expertise of the team and himself, plus the information in U.S. EPA's documents, to develop the SWAMP Advisor expert knowledge system. The SWAMP Advisor uses the same framework that Dr. Keith developed under a 2001 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for the world's first environmental monitoring expert system (the Environmental Monitoring and Measurement Advisor - EMMA). This framework incorporates a dual screen presentation and 3 "planes" or "levels" of information: (1) a top/executive level with brief answers, (2) an educational level with in-depth information, and (3) a research level with links to other documents, slide shows, forms, and Internet sites.
One significant difference in the performance criteria of the SWAMP Advisor from EMMA is that the SWAMP Advisor actually writes a project-specific QAPP, chapter by chapter - there are 24 chapters. The draft QAPP sections are sent from California EPA's server to the user's personal computer in a rich text format (.rtf). This allows easy editing by the user who can then save the final document in MS Word format (.doc).
The SWAMP Advisor is capable of addressing multiple lines of inquiry (or problem statements/objectives). Many monitoring projects have more than one line of inquiry; for example, they may plan to monitor water characteristics such as pH, turbidity, temperature, etc. using real-time field measurements and also to collect water samples for analysis of pesticides, PCBs, metals, or E. coli, etc. using laboratory analyses. Each line of inquiry requires different Measurement Quality Objectives (MQOs) and uses very different sampling and analytical techniques with completely different performance criteria. The SWAMP Advisor "cycles through" applicable elements of a QAPP and address them separately. There is no limit to the number of lines of inquiry that a project may have and still be addressed by the SWAMP Advisor.
Another important function of the SWAMP Advisor is that it also automatically prepares the tables of data required for Elements 12, 13, 14, and 16! These tables are produced all at once in Element 7 and then the user simply formats and copies them to their respective element sections.This elimintes a very arduous task that often results in incomplete or erroneous information when the data is manually looked up and entered into the various tables.
The SWAMP Advisor was constructed so that the information in it can easily be modified; for example, to be customized to fit another state's requirements and objectives. Thus, other states and/or organizations can leverage time and experience from the California system and, rather than "re-invent the wheel," can use their limited resources wisely to customize similar software to save time and money. The software is guaranteed to write superior QAPPs that will save organizations the time and expense of making extensive edits and re-evaluating unacceptable QAPPs while, at the same time, ensuring that all of EPA's and the organization's criteria are adequately addressed. For more information please send an e-mail to info@instantref.com or call us at 770-267-7758.
The SWAMP Advisor has not officially been publicly released yet and minor modifications may continue to be made but all 24 elements have been completed and it is an excellent functioning system that may be peer reviewed if you wish. Click here to peer review the SWAMP Advisor. You may also download an example QAPP that was produced by the SWAMP Advisor if you wish. Click here to download an example QAPP.