Water Quality Monitoring

Water Quality Monitoring

The Water Resources Commission (WRC) is mandated to protect and manage the quality of Ghana’s water resources in the interest of both current and future generations. To fulfil this mandate, the WRC routinely collects and analyses surface and groundwater quality data across major basins to evaluate pollution status and support long-term planning.

The national monitoring programme assesses physical, chemical, and biological parameters at 41 sampling stations. The stations comprise 32 river sites and nine reservoir or lake sites across the Volta, South-Western, and Coastal systems. Monitoring is conducted biannually, in February (dry season) and July (wet season). The programme began in 2005 with 19 surface water monitoring stations. The network expanded to 40 stations by 2010 and has included 41 stations since 2013. This configuration has remained unchanged. However, no monitoring was conducted in 2009, resulting in a data gap for that year.

Results are used to inform resource management, regulatory decisions, and pollution control initiatives.