Annual Beaver Lake Volunteer Day Event: September 29th, 2025 Register Now
Pardon our progress! Our new website is still under construction. 🚧 If you need assistance, please contact us.
Annual Beaver Lake Volunteer Day Event: September 29th, 2025 Register Now
Pardon our progress! Our new website is still under construction. 🚧 If you need assistance, please contact us.
StreamSmart is a volunteer-led water quality monitoring program in the Beaver Lake Watershed. Started in 2013, the program trains volunteers to collect water samples and site observations 4 times a year, during March, June, September, and December.
The water samples that volunteers collect are sent to a certified lab for analysis. They become data points that help us understand changes in water quality over time. This tells a story of what’s happening in our local creeks and streams that flow back to Beaver Lake, the drinking water source for over 600,000 Arkansans! Our StreamSmart volunteers are vital and help build a long-term database on tributary stream sites in the Beaver Lake Watershed.
Our StreamSmart Mission:
This program is funded by Beaver Water District.
Volunteers take notes about their site, record air temperature, water temperature, and take pictures during each monitoring period. Then they collect water samples at their stream site, and deliver the samples to the Arkansas Water Resources Center Water Quality Lab, where they are analyzed for the following parameters:
In June and September, volunteers also get to collect and identify macroinvertebrates. Macroinvertebrates, or “aquatic bugs,” can be excellent indicators of water quality—and they’re fun to collect and identify!
Volunteers monitor four times a year — in March, June, September, and December. Monitoring takes place during the first ten days of the month, since it’s important for all site samples to be taken around the same time, and under the same weather conditions.
We need volunteers at the following monitoring sites:
We’d love to have you join us! StreamSmart is designed for adult volunteers and high school students who are supervised by adults. All volunteers receive training and usually are paired with an experienced team.
Our volunteers are friendly, passionate about the outdoors, and love sharing that passion with others! We have several sites that need volunteers. Contact us for more information, or to join the program!
Curious what we’re learning from StreamSmart data? Check out our Water Quality in the Beaver Lake Watershed reports! There are two versions: the full report, and a shorter, more accessible “highlights” version. There’s something for everyone!
Data Report Highlights (quicker, easier read)
Full Data Report (more detailed, technical read)
