A systematic approach to routine data quality assurance in marine monitoring activity

A systematic approach to effective quality assurance of marine monitoring data is presented and discussed briefly. This approach is currently in the preliminary phase of implementation at the Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale in Trieste, Italy, for water-column measurements of pressure, temperature and salinity, the fundamental hydrological parameters. The approach is based on classical quality assurance principles, and advocates the development and running of a formal in-house quality assurance programme to ensure measurement quality. First, demonstrable control of all relevant reference measurement systems and in situ measuring equipment is assessed and continually assured, using suitable reference materials, control charts and validated operating protocols. Thereafter, the values of the tolerance limits established for the instrumentation used in the actual monitoring - which then represent the minimum uncertainties that can be expected for any measurements made with them - are employed to evaluate the \"goodness\" of the field data.