ABSTRACT
After collecting your water quality samples, analyzing them in the laboratory, and quality assuring the database, it is hoped that you end up with a database that you can rely on and that accurately represents the conditions in the sampled water body at the time of sampling. Nevertheless, good data are of limited utility if they are not properly analyzed and interpreted. The data analysis is a critical part of the overall effort. Unfortunately, there is not one way to analyze your data. There are, however, certain kinds of analyses that you can conduct that are likely to shed light on the water conditions that you sampled. In this section, we highlight some of these routine analytical approaches that you might find useful. In addition to, or instead of, the analyses that we recommend, you could come up with your own variations on the themes outlined here.
