Friends of the Mad River is seeking volunteers for the 2025 Mad River Watch Program, continuing a tradition of community-based monitoring that began in 1985. This long-standing program works with community members to collect data on the chemical, physical, and biological conditions of the Mad River and its tributaries.
Volunteers will visit designated field sites six times throughout the summer, gathering information like water temperature, pH, and conductivity. “This data is instrumental in tracking changes in the watershed over time,” explained Ira Shadis, Friends of the Mad River director. “The data and observations that volunteers collect help us prioritize stewardship and restoration activities. These volunteers also play an incredibly important role in helping to tell the story of our river and its surrounding watershed. Through their eyes, we are better able to see the link between things like land use and water quality.”
In recent years, the program has integrated modern tools to improve data collection and volunteer engagement. “Our community scientists use geospatially-powered software like Survey123 and iNaturalist,” Shadis noted. “They also use handheld conductivity probes to help us understand the salt and mineral loading in the water. When we combine the data that these tools allow our volunteers to collect with other data from other sources, like the USGS gage, we can start to paint a really full picture of the river.”
In 2024, the Mad River Watch program joined in the La Rosa Partnership, a state-run program that allows Friends of the Mad River to submit water samples for analysis. Samples are collected from six sites that cover the main stem of the Mad River. “This year, we’ve also established some leave-in probes at the La Rosa sites,” said Shadis. “We are calling these our sentinel sites and they will collect data on temperature, dissolved oxygen, and conductivity every 15 minutes. We’ll leave these probes in longer than our traditional field season in an effort to capture more information about seasonal changes in the river.”
Training sessions for new and returning volunteers will be held at the end of May, with the first field days scheduled for June 9 and 10, 2025. Community members interested in participating are encouraged to learn more and sign up at www.friendsofthemadriver.org/madriverwatch, or contact Friends of the Mad River’s watershed engagement coordinator, Marcy Bucheit, at
