Monitoring Point Selection and Display

Water quality monitoring points can be selected in four ways :

• by monitoring network (either National or POLMON.)
• by data record
• by provincial boundary

To select monitoring points

To select monitoring points, click on the Point selection and display icon on the Main menu bar.

The Method of selection menu appears in the upper right-hand corner of the screen...

To select points by Monitoring Network

Click on the top button to the right-hand side of the Monitoring Network option. The Monitoring points menu will appear.

Click on the Switch Monitoring Points On check box at the top of the menu. You can now choose if you want to display the points :

• within your selected catchments only
• over the whole country

Below this section of the menu are the numerous monitoring networks from which you can choose. Monitoring networks are stored as point features and are displayed as small square features on the screen. Their colour is dependent on the monitoring network they belong to and the colours for these are not fixed. If you attempt to select more than one monitoring network or more than one aspect of the monitoring network, your previous choices will be deselected. WaterMarque changes the points on screen as you select networks. For example, clicking first on the All option under the National Monitoring Network option will bring a large number of monitoring network points to screen. Should you now select the stream monitoring points (i.e. a subset within National), the points on screen will disappear. Those points from your first selection that are National Stream Monitoring points, will be represented by red points, as the default colour.

The monitoring networks available are:

National :

• All
• Rivers
• Reservoirs

Regional (POLMON):

• All
• Highveld
• Transvaal
• Natal
• Free State
• Eastern Cape
• SW Cape

but these monitoring networks are not implemented in this version of WaterMarque.

To further refine your selection use the following buttons:

One -allows the user to select one monitoring station from the dis play screen
Many -allows the user to select many monitoring stations from the dis play screen. Press 9 to quit.
Box -allows the user to select monitoring stations within an extent b y indicating the corners of a box on the display screen
Station number -allows the user to pick a station number from a scrol ling list in a menu
Reset -resets the selection set to the setting on the menu

The Selected stations scrolling list contains the station numbers of the currently selected monitoring stations.

Once you have selected the monitoring network you wish to assess, click on the Done icon at the bottom of the screen. A single monitoring station, particularly a National monitoring station, is often used to monitor several different characteristics of water quality. Thus, if you select the different options in turn in this menu, you will see the same point on the map change colour to indicate that the different characteristics are being monitored at the same point.

The next menu to appear to screen is the Final Dataset menu.

Selecting monitoring points by Data Record

Click on the Data Record icon on the Method of Selection menu. Activate the Method of Selection menu through the Point selection and display icon on the Main menu bar.

Then click on the Data Record icon. The Data Record menu will appear in the upper right-hand corner. To select monitoring points based on data records:

Click on the check box to the right of the Set monitoring points on option.

Select either :

• Within area, or
• All points,

by clicking on the relevant check box following your choice.

Select your points by data type.

In this you have a choice of:

• Inorganic
• Trace Metals
• Organic
• Trihalomethanes
• Biomonitoring
• Habitat Diversity
• Algal Identification
• Invertebrates
• Bacteriology
• Flow
• Polmon

Table 1. Substances or characteristics monitored (shaded items not available in WaterMarque)

Your selection of the dataset will be determined by your purposes and tasks. As you select the points by data type you will notice that the scroll box at the bottom of the screen is continually updated.

Look at the Set data record per point options section of the the menu. Do you want :

• data for all the points extracted regardless of the number of records for
• data extracted only where the number of records exceeds one?
• to select monitoring points for which no data exists?
• to select a range of data available for each point where especially large data sets exist, giving the range minimum and maximum.

To further refine your selection use the following buttons:

One -allows the user to select one monitoring station from the dis play screen
Many -allows the user to select many monitoring stations from the dis play screen. Press 9 to quit.
Box -allows the user to select monitoring stations within an extent b y indicating the corners of a box on the display screen
Station number -allows the user to pick a station number from a scrol ling list in a menu
Reset -resets the selection set to the setting on the menu

The Selected stations scrolling list contains the station numbers of the currently selected monitoring stations.

In the present version of WaterMarque, only one monitoring network dataset can be assessed with at once, although several variables within a particular dataset category may be processed simultaneously.

If you wish to interrogate the regional (POLMON) monitoring networks further, select the POLMON in more detail menu. Different menus will appear with a similar format to the data record menu, which you can switch between.

Finally, if you are satisfied with your selection, click on the Done icon. The Final Dataset menu will appear.

POLMON figures are available for all regions.

If you are dissatisfied with your selection, click on the Draw icon which will clear all data selected here and you can start again.

Selecting Monitoring Points by Provincial Boundary

Click on the Provincial Boundaries icon on the Method of Selection menu. Activate the Method of Selection menu through the Point selection and display icon on the Main menu bar.

The Provincial Boundaries menu appears on the screen.

To select monitoring points within Provincial Boundaries:

Click on the check box to the right of the Set Monitoring Points on option.

Select either :

• Within area, or
• All points,

by clicking on the relevant check box following your choice.

Select the Province for which you want data displayed, either:

• Northern Province
• Mpumalanga
• North West
• Northern Cape
• Gauteng
• Free State
• Kwazulu Natal
• Eastern Cape
• Western Cape

To further refine your selection use the following buttons:

One -allows the user to select one monitoring station from the dis play screen
Many -allows the user to select many monitoring stations from the dis play screen. Press 9 to quit.
Box -allows the user to select monitoring stations within an extent b y indicating the corners of a box on the display screen
Station number -allows the user to pick a station number from a scrol ling list in a menu
Reset -resets the selection set to the setting on the menu

The Selected stations scrolling list contains the station numbers of the currently selected monitoring stations.

In the present version of WaterMarque, only one dataset category can be dealt with at once, although several variables within a particular dataset category may be processed simultaneously.

Selecting Your Final Dataset

• reselect the data, or,
• add additional datasets,

go back to the relevant monitoring networks to do so.

To select the current selection for any of these datasets, click on the check box following the current selection option in the relevant dataset. You cannot select more than one dataset.

If satisfied with your selection, click on the Done icon

If dissatisfied, click on the Resel(reselect) icon and start again.

The selection sets created from one method of selection will not be kept when switching to another method of selection.


If you click on the Done icon, the Final Dataset menu will appear. The user can now verify to either use the inorganic selection set or POLMON selection set to continue.

The following menu is the first menu of the Data Query module. All following menus will be discussed fully in the next chapter even though they can be accessed through the Monitoring Points selection and display module, as well as the selection of Data query icon on the Main menu bar.