Water Quality Library

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The Water Quality Planning Library was formed to support the mission and operations of the Montana DEQ's Planning, Prevention and Assistance Division, Water Quality Planning Bureau (WQPB). Early collections emphasized site specific water quality reports and data, while later shifts in the collection are emphasizing not only narrow site specific data but also a broader scope of water quality issues.

The total number of volumes in the collection numbers approximately 4,500. The holdings consist of a monograph collection, a journal collection of back runs of ecological and environmental related material, a collection of unique material relating to Montana, a small collection of special format material including videos, slides, photographs, maps, CD-ROMS, and a collection of educational materials.

Services Provided

Circulation

Anyone can search our catalog (see link below). However, to check out materials, you must be a registered patron. If you are not a registered patron or are not sure, contact your Water Quality Librarian.

Montana Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC)

Water Quality Planning Bureau Library Database

Search the Water Quality Planning Bureau Library Database

The Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ), Water Quality Planning Bureau (WQPB) is the state's delegated authority for conducting and reporting on statewide water quality status and trends under the Federal Clean Water Act (CWA).  The Montana Water Quality Act (MWQA), (MCA 75-5-702(5)) also directs the department to "...develop and maintain a data management system that can be used to assess the validity and reliability of the data used in the listing and priority ranking process.  The department shall make available to the public, upon request, data from its data management system...”  To meet its statutory obligations under the CWA and MWQA, the DEQ and its contractor developed the Water Quality Assessment, Reporting, and Documentation System (WARD).

As part of the WARD application the Water Quality Planning Bureau (WQPB) Library Database is designed to serve two primary purposes:

  1. To function as the catalog for the Water Quality Planning Bureau Library
  2. To identify materials in other libraries which have been found to be useful support documents for the DEQ Water Quality Management Program.

In fulfilling these purposes the library interface is used in a variety of ways:

  • To locate materials dealing with specific topics which are held in the Water Quality Planning Bureau Library. This is accomplished through the database's ability to search on a variety of program specific fields i.e. water body ID, HUC, stream / lake name, data type, keyword, agency by or for, etc..
  • To build bibliographic lists for inclusion in DEQ water quality assessment, planning, and management documents.
  • To populate the reference fields in the WQSA assessment records as part of the WARD application.

Public access to the WQBP Library database is made available through the LISA application to those outside the state firewall. To obtain more information regarding the WARD project please contact the WARD project manager.

Interlibrary Loan

If you would like to obtain a publication that we do not hold, please either request the item from the I Need Material link in the shared catalog or send an e-mail to WQPB Librarian.