- Connected monitoring
- Predictive protection
- Stronger compliance
Connected technologies to protect surface water quality and compliance
Protecting rivers, lakes and coastal waters starts with understanding how wastewater systems interact with receiving environments. With Aquadvanced water ways, we help you monitor surface and coastal water bodies using real-time observations, laboratory analysis and high-resolution modeling. This science‑based approach helps you better understand the impact of discharges, overflows, river flow inputs, and nonpoint source pollution, warn users when water quality is at risk, and communicate clearly with stakeholders through visual, educational decision‑support tools.
Extreme and localized rainfall events, especially in regions such as California and across the United States, are changing how wastewater systems must be designed and operated. Aquadvanced urban drainage strengthens your ability to anticipate and manage these pressures. By combining real‑time network data with predictive hydraulic modeling, it helps you forecast stormwater behavior, reduce overflow risks, and optimize system performance during wet‑weather events. You can evaluate operational strategies, coordinate storage and conveyance assets, and make informed decisions that limit pollution peaks and protect sensitive surface water environments.
To make sense of growing volumes of information, eRIS data hub brings all your data together in one connected view. We help you integrate SCADA data, sensors, lab results and field observations without complex data duplication. You gain real‑time visibility of flows, pollutant loads, discharge events, and compliance indicators, supported by customizable dashboards and automated reporting. This clarity helps you detect anomalies early, respond quickly to risks, and improve collaboration across teams.
At the treatment plant level, Aquadvanced plant helps you act on these insights. By combining real‑time monitoring with predictive control, we support you in optimizing water treatment and wastewater treatment processes to reduce pollutant loads and protect receiving surface waters. The software continuously adjusts operations to maintain effluent quality, prevent overflows and ensure regulatory compliance, while also improving energy efficiency and process stability. This supports healthier streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs and reduces impacts on groundwater–surface water interactions.
Together, Aquadvanced water ways, Aquadvanced urban drainage, eRIS data hub and Aquadvanced plant work as one integrated solution. Monitoring shows you what is happening in the environment, water science and data management turn information into insight, and smart control helps you take the right action at the right time. Whether you are a technical specialist or a decision‑maker, you benefit from clear, actionable information tailored to your needs.
As your partner, we help you safeguard surface water quality, strengthen regulatory compliance, and build resilient wastewater systems. By turning complex environmental data into practical intelligence, we enable you to protect ecosystems today while preparing for the challenges of tomorrow; supporting healthier surface water bodies, reducing nonpoint source pollution, and improving long‑term water quantity and quality across diverse water sources.
Frequently Asked Questions
Surface water quality refers to the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of surface waters such as rivers, lakes, streams, and reservoirs. It describes how clean or polluted the water is, how it responds to runoff, and how suitable it is for water supply, water treatment, drinking water, industrial uses, and environmental science applications.
In the United States, surface water quality is monitored using USGS data, water science center research, and remote sensing tools that measure pollution, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other indicators. These measurements help determine whether surface water can support aquatic life, maintain healthy streams rivers lakes, and meet national water quality standards.
Understanding surface water quality is essential for managing water sources, protecting fresh surface water, and ensuring safe water quantity and quality for communities and ecosystems.
Surface water quality is influenced by a wide range of natural and human‑driven factors. Runoff from agriculture, industrial pollution, and nonpoint source pollution introduces carbon, nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, and other contaminants into surface waters. Changes in river flow, stream flow, and lake circulation also affect how pollutants move through water bodies.
Weather patterns, groundwater–surface water interactions, and surface water flow dynamics shape the physical, chemical, and biological conditions of rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs. In many regions of the United States and Canada, harmful algal blooms develop when excess nutrients enter surface water, degrading water quality and threatening water supply.
Agencies such as the USGS, Canadian water science programs and regional water science centers collect data to track these changes and understand how pollution, runoff, and land use affect surface water quality over time. This science‑based approach helps guide water treatment, watershed protection, and long‑term water science planning.
Surface water includes all water found above the ground in rivers, lakes, streams, reservoirs, wetlands, and other surface water bodies. These surface waters are fed by runoff, precipitation, groundwater–surface water exchange, and natural river flow.
In North America, surface water is a major source of water supply for drinking water, industrial uses, agriculture, and water treatment facilities. Across both the United States and Canada, it includes fresh surface water, streams, rivers, lakesand reservoirs that are monitored for water quality and pollution using USGS data, Canadian hydrological datasets, remote sensing, and ongoing water science center research.
Because surface water is exposed to the atmosphere and surrounding land, it is more vulnerable to nonpoint source pollution, industrial runoff, and changes in water quantity and quality. Understanding what qualifies as surface water is essential for managing water sources, protecting ecosystems, and maintaining safe water supply systems.
Whether groundwater is “better” than surface water quality depends on the water characteristics, local geology, land use, and levels of pollution. Groundwater is often naturally filtered through soil and rock, which can reduce carbon, sediments, and some contaminants. However, it can still be affected by industrial pollution, agricultural chemicals, and nonpoint source impacts.
Surface water, found in rivers, lakes, streams, and reservoirs, is more exposed to runoff, pollution, and changes in surface water flow, which can reduce water quality. Because of this, surface water treatment typically requires more extensive physical, chemical, and biological processes before it becomes safe drinking water.
In the United States and Canada, both groundwater and surface water are monitored through national water quality programs, USGS data, Canadian hydrological networks, and ongoing water science research to ensure they meet safety standards. Neither source is inherently “better”; each requires proper management, water treatment, and continuous science‑based monitoring to maintain high water quality across North America.