1. science
2. ecology
3. pollution

Sengupta, M. and Dalwani, R. (Editors). 2008.
Proceedings of Taal2007: The 12th World Lake Conference: 167-175
Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment: Current Status and Future
Needs
Richard D. Robarts1, Sabrina J. Barker2 and Scott Evans
1
UNEP GEMS/Water Programme, 11 Innovation Blvd., Saskatoon, SK, CANADA S7N 3H5
2
UNEP GEMS/Water Programme, c/o UNEP-DEWA, 1 United Nations Av., Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya
3
Chipotle Business Group, Inc. 121 West Park Row Drive, Arlington, Texas, 76010 U.S.A.
Email: richard.robarts@gemswater.org, sabrina.barker@gemswater.org, sevans@chipotlegroup.com
ABSTRACT
Although water quality monitoring and assessment programmes provide essential background
information to scientific research, policy makers and water mangers and keep societies informed of the
state and trend of the Earth’s vital aquatic ecosystems, their value has at times been called into question
for very good reasons. This is because monitoring programmes can become self-generating unless they
are strongly linked to the needs of users and can generate large amounts of data at great cost that are
unnecessary or are not used. In many countries decisions were made to cancel monitoring programmes
where 20 years or so ago, these have been re-instated as environmental issues become an increasing
concern worldwide. Modern monitoring programmes are designed to be effective keystone components
of integrated water resources management. With the use of interoperable database technology, data can
be shared amongst a wide number of users, providing a strong return on investment for governments and
society generally. However, costs remain high for a modern water quality programme and there are
remote areas where it is still not possible to monitor water quality; in some countries even simple
monitoring programmes are beyond local means. Continued research and development of innovative
new technology, therefore, are necessary to adequately meet the demands for environmental water
quality information. We believe the future for innovative water quality testing technologies looks bright.
Keywords: inland waters, lakes, climate change, data sharing, data bases, open web services,
monitoring technologies
INTRODUCTION
Key environmental stressors
Fresh water, like all natural resources, is under
increased demand as the world’s population grows.
In many regions of the world people are removing
water from rivers, lakes and aquifers faster than these
systems can be recharged. It has been estimated that
population growth alone will mean that the number
of water-stressed, or water-scarce, countries will
increase from 31 to 48 within the next 30 years
(Hinrichsen et al. 1998). Additionally, the demand
for fresh water has increased in response to industrial
development, increasing reliance on irrigated
agriculture, massive urbanization, and rising living
standards (Shiklomanov 2000).
Global freshwater availability is shrinking not
only in quantitative terms, but also in qualitative
terms because many freshwater systems have
become increasingly polluted with a wide variety of
human,
agricultural
and
industrial wastes
(Shiklomanov 2000). In addition, climate change
and variability are also expected to affect both the
quantity and quality of water, creating competing
demands for this resource from multiple sectors of
society. Developing countries are faced with difficult
choices as they find themselves caught between finite
and increasingly polluted water supplies on the one
hand, and rapidly rising demand from population
growth and development on the other (Somlyódy et
al. 2001). Water shortages and pollution are causing
widespread public health problems, limiting
economic and agricultural development, and harming
a wide range of ecosystems, which may result in a
series of local and regional water crises with global
implications (CSD 1997). However, water quality
has improved in many systems when local political
will has resulted in resources and management plans
bring
necessary
positive
changes
(UNEP
GEMS/Water Programme 2007).
Lakes, unlike rivers, are mainly storage bodies
and are estimated to contain more than 90 per cent of
the liquid freshwater on Earth (ILEC 2003). Lakes
are dynamic ecosystems, and in addition to their
storage function they are the source of food and
recreation for humans, support a large range of
biodiversity goods and services and provide the
foundation for people’s livelihoods. When natural
climatic conditions do not provide enough water,
lakes can meet both human and ecosystem needs
(ILEC 2003). Unfortunately, lakes are also among
the most vulnerable and fragile aquatic ecosystems as
they are a sink for a wide range of dissolved and
particulate substances. In addition, climate change
can interact with other lake stressors with both
positive and negative consequences for specific lake
systems, as outlined in Table 1.
Table 1. The interaction of climate change with
other lake stressors (from Schindler, 1997).
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Climatic warming may delay the recovery
of acidified lakes.
Decreasing DOC concentrations in warming
lakes could be accelerated by acidification.
Eutrophication problems may increase, even
though nutrient loads may decrease because
of increased retention times.
Dissolved oxygen saturation decreases with
increasing temperature so that the impact of
oxygen consuming effluents may be more
severe.
Increased periods of stratification in
eutrophic
lakes
could
exacerbate
hypolimnetic oxygen deficits.
Increased UV radiation exposure of
organisms may occur in lakes undergoing
warming and acidification due to decreasing
DOC concentrations.
Climate warming interactions with toxins
will be many and complex, ranging from
reduced toxin loads, increased retention, to
increased revolatilization, decomposition
and cycling in lakes.
Increased human use of water will interact
with climate warming to compound already
severe problems in water quantity and
quality, which will impact all aspects of
society and the environment.
Reliable, consistent and appropriate information
is the key to understanding and improving the
world’s supply and quality of freshwater. There is a
general consensus that our knowledge of the state of
the world’s freshwaters needs to improve (WWAP
2006). Inland and marine waters are intimately
linked in the hydrological cycle so that an
improvement in our knowledge of the quality of
inland waters will also lead to benefits for the marine
environment.
The need for water quality monitoring and
assessment programmes and the key attributes of
successful programmes
Lovett et al. (2007) define environmental monitoring
as a time series of measurements of physical,
chemical and/or biological variables designed to
answer questions about environmental change. Water
quality monitoring programmes are essentially of
two types: those in support of research, and those
that provide essential information and assessments
for management and policy needs. However, almost
a decade ago long-term monitoring programmes fell
168
out of favour with some government organizations
because:
• Monitoring was viewed by some as not
being real science, but only a fishing
expedition that diverts resources from “real”
science (Lovett et al. 2007).
• Programmes were large and expensive
requiring sophisticated and expensive
equipment.
• They were disconnected from the purpose of
science or management as a result of
organizational fragmentation.
• They became self-focused and their own
sole purpose, i.e., monitoring for the sake of
monitoring.
• Too many and unnecessary parameters were
measured too frequently at too many
stations. As new analytical technologies
have become available it has become easier
to measure large numbers of variables in
water samples, which can lead to the
collection of data that are unnecessary
although at no real extra cost.
• Large amounts of data were collected but
not used.
• We cannot know today what crucial
questions will need to be answered in the
future.
As a result, only governments or large
corporations could afford to do monitoring. Even so,
monitoring programmes in some countries were
abruptly terminated without due consideration for the
consequences (Fig. 1). But water quality monitoring
when properly designed and integrated into decisionmaking processes as outlined below provides crucial
information for the development of policies and
management plans that protect and preserve our
essential aquatic ecosystems. Indeed as Lovett et al.
(2007) have noted, there are many highly successful
long-term monitoring programmes that have
provided important scientific advances and crucial
information for environmental policy. However, they
need to:
• Be tailor-made for a country’s needs based
on knowledge of the variance in local
aquatic systems and the known and potential
stressors.
• They do not have to be large and expensive
–
small
but effective
monitoring
programmes can be undertaken by groups at
all levels, including trained high school
children using simple, low cost test kits.
• Knowledge is power, so the right
information presented appropriately is
essential to protecting and conserving inland
waters and getting political action.
• Information must be freely shared with all
stakeholders.
30500
0.20
Nitrate + Nitrite
Instantaneous Flow
0.16
24400
0.12
18300
0.08
12200
0.04
6100
0.00
1979
1980 1981
1982
1983 1984
1988 1989 1990
1991
1992
Instantaneous Flow (m 3 sec -1)
Nitrate + Nitrite (mg L-1)
Legend
0.00
Year
Figure 1 An example from the Mackenzie River in Canada of a long-term break in water monitoring as a result
of a decision to place scarce resources into other activities and its re-instatement when it was realized that this
prevented the detection of possible impacts with growing downstream economic activities.
A number of attributes of successful monitoring
programmes that we have previously identified are:
1.
Identify
management
and
policy
information needs.
2. Link to institutional arrangements with
regulatory ability (i.e., to establish
standards).
3. Improve
coordination
among
the
organizations involved in water, sanitation
and ecosystem and human health.
4. Define data and information needs and then
design the monitoring network to meet them.
5. Ensure reliable and timely data collection
and reporting.
6. Co-locate water quality and quantity
stations for the calculation of fluxes.
7. Enough monitoring stations strategically
located to have accurate and reliable
country/basin coverage, i.e., a headwater
stations and another station where a river
enters the marine environment, a large
inland water body or crosses an
international border.
8. Be responsive to unexpected problems and
emerging issues.
9. Maintain country needs by building capacity
and empowerment.
10. Strengthen existing network infrastructure
and institutions rather than creating new
ones.
11. Promote free access to information through
the interoperability and comparability of
methods.
12. Maintain systems up-to-date (IT, analytical
etc.).
Moving from monitoring to prediction
In a recent article describing the U.S. Geological
Survey’s perspective on water quality monitoring
and assessment in the United States, Hirsch et al.
(2006) noted that the development and verification of
predictive tools and models is essential to understand
and successfully manage the country’s waters. It is
not financially feasible to establish a detailed
network of monitoring stations in very large
countries, a problem faced by the UNEP
GEMS/Water Programme in trying to compile
representative water quality data for the world.
Therefore, as Hirsch et al. point out, it is necessary to
get smarter by enhancing the value of data collected
at individual sites and applying, both spatially and
temporally, our understanding of hydrological
systems and water quality conditions to larger areas.
Development of appropriate models is the key to
doing this. At the same time, development of
predictive tools will help to prioritize contaminant
sources and to identify the relative importance of the
many factors that influence water quality at different
geographical scales. Models can also be used to
estimate probabilities that a concentration of a
specific compound will exceed guidelines and
standards for the use of drinking, agricultural and
recreational waters use (Hirsch et al. 2006). It is
essential however, that reliable, comparable and
comprehensive data must continue to be generated by
traditional monitoring methods. These data will be
169
required to validate and verify model outputs and
concomitantly reduce their uncertainty.
The benefits of water quality monitoring and
assessment programmes
Why long term monitoring programmes? Many
aquatic systems may change only slowly and the
long-term record of key parameters provides the
essential yardstick to assess status and trends. This is
especially important now as we try to assess and
predict the impact of climate change and variability
on inland water systems. Long term programmes
may also identify previously unknown “hotspots”
and point to developing issues. Data provided by
such programmes are also necessary to determine
whether an event or change is normal, unusual or
extreme (Lovett et al. 2007) and can contribute to the
development of a scientific project or a more detailed
monitoring activity. Unfortunately, long-term
monitoring records are rare due to the lack of
resources available to sustain them, but they are
extremely valuable when they are made available.
The United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP)
GEMS/Water
Programme
(www.gemswater.org) collects water quality data at a
global scale and maintains an on-line database
(GEMStat) with almost four million entries covering
the period 1965 to 2007 (www.gemstat.org). And,
while the database contains water quality monitoring
records from over 80 participating countries, regular
long term reporting of monitoring data to
GEMS/Water is the exception rather than the rule:
many countries report regularly for only a few years,
and sometimes country records span two distinct
periods that often are separated by more than a
decade where water quality data were not reported to
GEMS/Water (Fig. 2).
As noted by Lovett et al. (2007), monitoring
programmes not only provide the basis of the
formulation of science-based environmental policies,
but also continued monitoring makes possible
evaluations that determine whether or not a policy
has resulted in the desired effect and been cost
effective. It is well known that often the prevention
of an environmental problem is less costly than its
remediation.
While
solutions
for
many
environmental problems are expensive and
technically challenging, what is often not recognized
is that the cost of well-designed monitoring
programmes is generally much less than either the
cost of policy implementation or the monetary
benefits associated with the environmental
improvement (Lovett et al. 2007).
Figure 2. Some examples of variable data contributions from countries participating in the UNEP GEMS/Water
Programme. These breaks in data are due to a number of factors such as national decisions to change monitoring
stations in response to local priorities or changes in agencies responsible for monitoring with a resulting loss of
contact between the Programme and a national focal point.
170
Data and information sharing and use
It is known that water quality issues are site-specific,
and that actions at local levels are needed to deal
with any particular watershed. Yet at the same time,
local actions and regional activities can greatly
benefit from linkages at the global level, such as:
sharing experiences between sites and regions;
exchange of data and information on global scientific
and Internet developments; and situating water
quality data within a broader geospatial context for
analysis and assessment.
Many policy- and decision-makers at local,
national and regional levels are concerned about
investing adequately in data collection systems.
Many governments around the world are becoming
increasingly interested in developing national data
and information systems, as well as in ensuring their
interoperability. Interoperability refers to the ability
of a database or system to exchange information and
to use the information that has been exchanged.
Often this is achieved using Open Web Services.
One example is the online water quality
database, GEMStat introduced above. GEMStat
provides environmental water quality data and
information of the highest integrity, accessibility and
interoperability. These data serve to strengthen the
scientific basis for global and regional water
assessments, indicators and early warning. The
GEMStat website is designed to share surface and
ground water quality data sets collected from the
GEMS/Water Global Network, including over 2,900
stations, almost four million records, and over 100
parameters. The success of the database depends on
the important role that partners in developing and
transitional countries play in regional and global
water information systems, to ensure the widest
coverage possible, and consequently, the ability to
share data and information.
It also depends on the widest accessibility to
stakeholders and beneficiaries. For these reasons, in
March 2006, GEMStat was expanded as an Open
Web Service. Open Web Services enable GEMStat
to respond not only to users’ requests for water
quality data, but also to requests coming from other
computer systems. These other computer systems
could include UNEP's environmental assessment
database, the Global Environment Outlook data
portal; ECOLEX, the international database of
environmental law jointly run by IUCN, FAO and
UNEP; or the endangered species and protected areas
databases operated at UNEP-WCMC on behalf of
IUCN, UNESCO and other partners.
Open Web Services also allow other agencies
and researchers to incorporate GEMStat data in their
own research and assessments, with less demand on
GEMS/Water to select and prepare the data. The
result will be more extensive and more frequent use
of GEMStat data, and more feedback from users to
ensure the quality and utility of these data. Open
Web Services refer to using the World Wide Web so
that database services, like GEMStat, can promote
their presence and capabilities, and other services can
find and connect to them. Standards and
specifications are developed by industry, academic,
governmental and other interested parties. These
groups include the Open Geospatial Consortium,
OASIS, and the Open Archive initiative, and the
specifications they develop are published openly, for
use by their members or anyone else at no cost. The
outcome is flexibility to identify and fit services to
particular needs. Many instances of this on-the-fly
integration of services have taken place, such as the
response to the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane
Katrina, where pre-existing state, national and
international information systems were able to be
quickly co-opted into generating overviews
combining everything from satellite images of
weather systems down to locations of individual
rescue teams, all through the Web.
This is only one example to illustrate how
accessing GEMStat stations by Open Web Services
and Google Earth can be used to assist researchers
and analysts to consider every station in its
geographical context (Fig. 3). It can also serve to
compare stations in different parts of the world that
share for example, similar ecosystems. This
application is particularly interesting for assessments
on water quality and erosion, as “upstream” or
nearby land characteristics can be easily determined.
Figure 3 Distribution of UNEP GEMS/Water
Programme monitoring stations in India. Monitoring
stations for all countries participating in
GEMS/Water can visualized with Google Earth
through www.gemstat.org.
There are 263 international river basins in the
world, which account for significant land coverage
and importance for many people. Thus, it is the
political composition of these shared waters that
highlights the many complexities involved with
transboundary
water
management.
Many
governments have recognized the need for
international cooperation through treaties and
171
agreements to effectively govern their transboundary
watersheds. Including integrated water resource
management (IWRM) approaches at the basin level,
competing water demands can be better understood
and managed. International cooperation with water
resources also creates improved conditions for trade
and investment. Further research is needed to more
rigorously describe the relationship between
socioeconomic development and water resource
health.
New technologies for water quality monitoring
In addition to the importance of being able to access
existing water quality data sources, new technologies
for water quality monitoring that are rapid,
quantitative, field deployable, comprehensive, simple
to use, and cost effective are needed to increase the
availability of world-wide water quality data.
Currently, data gaps exist in many regions without
national water quality monitoring programmes and
existing surveys do not necessarily provide essential
quantitative information on source or end-user water
quality (WHO/UNICEF 2004).
Furthermore, the
need for new water quality assessment tools is not
limited to developing countries. In the United States
there is an outcry for new beach water quality
monitoring tools and standards which will ensure the
safety of humans and preserve natural resources
(Dorfman 2006). Current technologies to analyze
water for bacterial contaminates require an
incubation time between 24 and 48 hours (Messer
and Dufour 1998; USEPA 2000), even though
studies have shown that temporal changes in
indicator bacteria levels in beach water occur on
much shorter time scales (Leecaster and Weisberg
2001; Boehm et al. 2002). Often, by the time test
results are returned to decision makers, the threat of
exposure to contaminated water has passed.
Even the most basic water quality test kits for
physical-chemical properties utilizing reagents and
colorimetric devices can be cumbersome, time
consuming, expensive, require skilled operators, and
have a high degree of human error. For instance, the
HACH DR 5000 spectrophotometer, commonly used
in the US by public laboratories for water quality
analysis, can analyze for up to a maximum of 90
single parameters in an 8 hour work day. However,
to acquire some measure of quality data a laboratory
provides, water samples must be transported to the
laboratory for analysis, adding additional time, and in
some cases sample degradation, between actual
collection of the water sample and the final results.
Currently, many countries do not have adequate
water quality monitoring programmes due to not
only the high initial capital expenditure in setting up
an environmental laboratory, but also to costs
including equipment maintenance, consumables,
staffing, and quality control. For instance, the Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality, the State’s
172
regulatory agency, has a US $480.7 million operating
budget
for
the
2007
fiscal
year
(http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/), nearly half the entire
Gross Domestic Product of the Republic of GuineaBissau,
a
western
African
nation
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_
U.S._states_and_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29).
Clearly, developing nations cannot invest in such
extensive water quality monitoring, yet there are few
options for reliable monitoring results with low
capital investment.
Development of novel, accurate, and precise
tests for the detection of physical-chemical properties,
biologicals or pollutants in water has mushroomed in
the past decade as new technologies have become
available. One of the most promising advances, the
Sensicore WaterPOINT 870 Multi-Parameter Optical
Water Quality Analyzer based on lab-on-a-chip
technology, was introduced in 2006 and boasts up to
24 different physical-chemical results in just a few
minutes.
Other recent technologies used for
physical-chemical detection include flow-injection
immunoassays (Hennion and Barcelo 1998), dipstick
immunoassays (Hennion and Barcelo 1998), test
strips coated with colloidal gold particles (Verheijen
et al. 2000; Putalun et al. 2004), liposome-amplified
immunoassays,
electrochemical
immunoassays
(Kašná and Skládal 2002) chemi-luminescent
immunoassays (Oi and Zhang 2004), magnetic
immunoassays (Liberti et al. 1997), and surface
plasma resonance immunoassays (Svitel et al. 2000;
Shimomura et al. 2001). Developing technologies for
measuring microbial contaminants of waters include:
1) new enzyme/substrate methods that incorporate
high-sensitivity fluorescence detection instruments,
including dual wavelength fluorometry to
simultaneously assess both enzymatic hydrolysis and
the loss of substrate (Jadamec et al. 1999), 2)
quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR)
technology that relies on specific nucleic acid
sequences (Noble et al. 2006), and antibody-antigen
binding properties, which includes evanescent wave
fiber optic biosensors (Wadkins et al. 1995), and 3)
Rapid Bacteria Detection (RBD) system which is
based on laser flow-through technology (Nobel and
Weisburg 2005), and capture of the antigen by
antibodies on magnetic beads (Lee and Deininger
2004).
Unfortunately, all of the methods currently
being developed for chemical and microbial analysis
rely on sophisticated, expensive, lab-based
equipment and highly skilled operators. New
technologies must address limitations with current
technologies to be effectively adopted into a water
quality monitoring programme. For instance, for a
new technology to add value to a monitoring
program it must either be faster, more portable, more
user friendly, more accurate, more cost effective,
and/or produce a broader range of parameters sought
by water quality monitors. While the aforementioned
technologies are steps in the right direction, they fail
to address a complete solution, that is, 1) rapid
detection of both organic and inorganic elements in
water; 2) field deployable; 3) operator friendly; 4)
comprehensive; and perhaps most important, 5) cost
effective.
There is currently no single supplier or known
technology capable of performing analyses for both
physical-chemical and microbial properties in
environmental water samples. Chipotle Business
Group, Inc. (CBGI) intends to provide in thirdquarter 2008 the first water testing system capable of
performing multiple immunological and reagent
assays, side by side up to 100 total assays,
simultaneously using the same quantitative optical
detector, thus allowing a much easier, faster, cost
effective, and comprehensive testing method. CBGI
combines the miniaturization of current reagent
assays with a proprietary immunological assay; both
types of analyses are preformed simultaneously in a
purpose-built detector utilizing quantitative optical
analysis as depicted in Fig. 4. CBGI’s
miniaturization of standard reagent tests for physicalchemical contaminants and packaging those tests into
a multiple parameter cassette (Fig. 5) that can be read
colourimetrically is ingenious. In doing so, CBGI not
only increases the utility of colourimetric testing but
also removes much of the human factor and costs
associated with water analysis and current
technologies.
CBGI technologies can be packaged as portable
field-deployable units about the size of a medium
briefcase, submersible autonomous monitoring units,
in-line process flow units, and free-standing
laboratory units. Portable/field deployable units and
continuous submersible autonomous monitoring
stations will allow for: 1) the collection of data in
countries with no programme or laboratories; 2)
extend existing monitoring areas without greatly
increasing costs; and 3) ensure uniformity of quality
data, especially for large countries with many
regional labs of different standards. CBGI predicts
these technologies, once completely developed,
could be a complete water quality monitoring
solution for developing countries.
Figure 5. Disassembled multiple parameter cassettes.
Each of the 100 wells represents an independent
assay that can either be a reagent assay or high
concentration immunoassay. A second cassette is
required for very low concentration immunoassays
and utilizes a standard 100 mL sample size.
Figure 4. Conceptual models of current water quality
analyses and the CBGI approach to water quality
analysis.
There are literally thousands of emerging
contaminates not currently regulated due to the lack
of sound data for them and their effects on the
environment and human health. The rapid detection
immunoassays CBGI is developing for organic
contaminants, such as estrogen and pesticides, will
allow field staff to rapidly obtain essential data;
thereby providing an early warning system and the
development of an understanding that such
contaminates may pose. This will lead to effective
policies and management plans.
Beyond being a comprehensive solution to
water analysis, CBGI is developing a scientific
breakthrough with its 30 minute immunoassay of
very low concentration biologicals such as E. coli
and Enterococcus. Rapid, accurate measurement of
these contaminates is a great concern for not only
developed countries but also for developing ones
where water contamination by faecal bacteria poses a
much greater danger to human health. CBGI is
developing quantum dot technology to eliminate long
incubation requirements for these assays, thus
173
allowing for a 30 minute time-to-results. This rapid
detection, combined with the ability to test for these
organisms in the field by unskilled or semi-skilled
operators, will be a groundbreaking achievement.
CONCLUSIONS
Who needs water quality monitoring and assessment
programmes? The answer is we all do: scientists to
provide essential background information to their
research, policy makers and mangers to design,
implement and assess the efficacy of their work and
society so that it remains informed of the state and
trend of its vital aquatic ecosystems. Although
monitoring
programmes
provide
essential
information to assess status and trends and to identify
emerging issues and environmental hotspots in
inland systems they can be highly expensive and
ineffective if the information and data collected are
not widely shared and used. Many policy- and
decision-makers at all levels are concerned about
investing adequately in data collection systems.
Governments around the world are becoming
increasingly interested in developing national data
and information systems, as well as in ensuring their
interoperability, or the ability of a database or system
to exchange information and to use the information
that has been exchanged. This is now commonly
done through Open Web Services.
Many national monitoring organizations and the
UNEP GEMS/Water global monitoring programme
are limited by current in-situ technologies, the
parameters they are capable of detecting and their
high cost. Laboratory analyses, while comprehensive,
are very expensive, labour-intensive and require
skilled technicians. For many countries, this is not an
option in the foreseeable future. Continued research
and development of innovative new technology, such
as that proposed by CBGI, are necessary to
adequately meet the demands for environmental
water quality data.
The future for innovative water quality testing
technologies looks bright. However, one must take
into consideration what motivates private industry to
develop and introduce new technologies. Unlike the
telecommunications
and
computer
software
industries where innovation is a requirement for
survival, commercialization of groundbreaking
innovation in the water quality testing industry is
typically carried out by start-up firms like Sensicore
and Chipotle Business Group, Inc. mentioned above.
There
are
many
new
technological
developments locked up in universities throughout
the world, like most mentioned above, and it is well
known that getting these technologies from a
university into the hands of those who need them is
not an easy endeavor. Case in point, lab-on-a-chip
technology has been in existence for decades yet
until only recently has found its way to water quality
testing. Until those with money (governmental and
174
non-governmental
organizations,
philanthropic
organizations, and private investors) take into
account non-monetary benefits and transfer that
money to those who can commercialize these
technologies, technology development for water
quality analysis will be at a lessened pace.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Nancy Brown-Peterson, Genevieve Carr,
Kelly Hodgson and Joseph Zirnhelt for providing
figures and comments on an earlier draft of the
manuscript.
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