What is a monitoring section, and what is the purpose of its establishment? Essentially, monitoring sections are set up to assess the impact of specific pollution sources on water bodies and to evaluate how pollution sources along both banks of the monitored river reach affect water quality, thereby enabling the control of pollutant discharge through standardized sampling. The critical question then arises: how can the data of monitoring sections that have already met compliance standards be subject to human interference?
The stable compliance of monitoring sections is of paramount importance, yet such sections are highly vulnerable to human interference during the operation of water quality monitoring stations. While standard operational procedures followed by staff should theoretically eliminate interference risks, unforeseen incidents are unavoidable—and real-world cases have confirmed this. For instance, heavy rainfall in upstream river segments may flush large quantities of aquatic plants, foam, and other debris into the monitored area. In such cases, targeted cleaning of debris around the monitoring section is necessary. After cleaning, a preliminary visual inspection of water quality can be conducted; if water quality remains poor, the root cause of pollution must be investigated.
Notably, even under heavy rainfall, some monitoring sections may maintain long-term stable compliance under normal conditions. So, what factors lead to human-induced interference with monitoring data, resulting in non-compliant wastewater monitoring results? A likely scenario is that cleaning staff scatter sodium percarbonate near the monitoring area in an attempt to improve water quality. Improper handling of this chemical can cause originally compliance-meeting sections to fail standards. Fundamentally, this issue stems from relevant personnel’s insufficient understanding of the seriousness of environmental monitoring, unfamiliarity with requirements for data authenticity and reliability, and lack of awareness of the legal liabilities associated with interfering with monitoring processes—ultimately leading to unnecessary adverse consequences.
Human interference in water quality monitoring manifests in diverse forms and arises from multiple factors. To prevent such interference, in-depth and comprehensive investigations into wastewater monitoring interference incidents must be conducted across regions. Based on empirical analysis of interference causes, a set of targeted, reasonable, and effective preventive measures should be formulated.
