Information & Overview

The Central Analytical Laboratory provides support services for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP)/National Trends Network (NTN) and NADP/Atmospheric Integrated Research Monitoring Network (AIRMoN).  The CAL is located at the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS) on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  The ISWS has served in this capacity since the NADP/NTN began operations in 1978 and the NADP/AIRMoN began operations in 1992. The CAL provides operations support as follows:

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  Analytical laboratory services
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  Quality assurance (QA) for field, laboratory, and data management areas
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  Site support, including supplies, site communications, and site operator training
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  Data entry, verification, validation, and reporting

Each month the NTN and AIRMoN submit approximately 1300 precipitation samples to the CAL. When sufficient volume is available, each sample undergoes 11 analyses: nitrate, sulfate, chloride, ammonium, orthophosphate, sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, pH, and conductivity. The QA sample requirements (such as internal blanks, control checks, calibration samples, interlaboratory comparison samples, and related samples) add an additional 25 percent sample load to the laboratory.  Each month the CAL performs approximately 15,000 analyses for the NADP. Data validation activities require the review of more than 1 million data points each month.

 

Web page was updated 07/09/2008