A Geographically Variable Water Quality Index Used in Oregon.

Abstract

Recently many techniques for interpreting quality have been developed and pre sented in the literature. A large proportion of these water quality indicators have taken the form of a water quality index?a quantitative expression of the degree of quality im pairment of a given body of water.1-18 The need for such an index is great and well docu mented.19-23 The relative lack of progress in developing a widely applicable index can be attributed to two main factors: a lack of consensus on index design and an apprehension among qual ity professionals that indexes will be misused and technical information will be lost or hidden in the aggregated data. With this in mind, an investigation was undertaken to evaluate exist ing indexes and to develop an index for Oregon that23