MSRA Webinar Series - Spreadsheets to Streamlined: Modernizing Water Quality Data with The Water Quality Data Acquisition Solution (WQDas) feat. Najma Khokhar
MSRA is excited to continue our series of webinars featuring leading industry researchers and partners, as we strive to offer opportunities for discussion and promote advancement of the stream restoration science. Visit our website and social media channels for upcoming webinars.
Continuing Education Credits will be offered for the MSRA Webinar Series!
We hope you will join us:
When: Thursday, July 31st
Time: 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Where: GoToWebinar
Following your registration, and prior to the event, you will receive a webinar link from GoToWebinar on the morning of the webinar which will give you access to the webinar.
Will you be attending?
Register Today! Registration will Close at 3pm the Day Before the Webinar.
EVENT DETAILS:
Cost: Free for members, $10 for non-members
Presentation Abstract:
From Spreadsheets to Streamlined: Modernizing Water Quality Data with Water Quality Data Acquisition Solution (WQDas)
If you’ve ever lost a day—or a week—wrangling water quality data across scattered Google Sheets, Excel files, PDFs, or Access databases… you’re not alone.
Field teams and data analysts are under pressure to deliver accurate, defensible reports—but data is often fragmented, inconsistent, and hard to track. Whether it's preparing for the biennial Integrated Report, meeting strict MS4 permit deadlines, or responding to beach closure or HAB data requests, the process is too often slowed by reformatting files, digging through old documents, and managing version control headaches.
In this session, we’ll show how organizations like Riverkeeper or government agencies can use WQDas to reduce reporting time from days to under an hour, improve QA/QC, and stop wasting staff time on tedious formatting. One group even described it as “gaining a full-time analyst—without hiring one.”
· If your current system requires interns to manually hunt down past records…
· If reports get delayed because a key file is stuck in someone’s inbox…
· If your team is unsure whether a data point came from a YSI sonde or a pH strip…
· That’s not just inefficient—it’s risky. For your program, your funding, and the ecosystem you're trying to protect.
WQDas is purpose-built by a team with 20+ years of experience supporting environmental agencies and nonprofits. It's integrated with EPA’s WQX platform, offers defensible audit trails, and delivers fast setup and training—even for field teams with minimal tech experience.
If you’re responsible for water quality monitoring and reporting and want to finally feel in control of your data systems—join us. This presentation is especially valuable for environmental analysts, program managers, and field leads looking to streamline workflows before the next reporting cycle.
Presenter's Abstract: Najma P. Khokhar is the founder of TechZone MD and the creator of WQDas (Water Quality Data Acquisition Solution), bringing over two decades of experience in environmental science, water quality, and data management. She has worked within multiple state environmental agencies, where she witnessed the challenges of managing fragmented datasets spread across Excel files, Access databases, PDFs, and paper logs. From June 2019 to January 2025, she served as Chair of the Information Management and Communication Committee for the Maryland Water Monitoring Council, where she led statewide efforts to modernize and improve data practices across the water monitoring community. Najma holds two Master of Science degrees—one in Environmental Science from Towson University and another in Botany from Balochistan University. Her technical expertise is backed by an Oracle Certified Associate (OCA) certification, training from UMBC Training Center, AWS and advanced Microsoft Access training from System Source Inc., and non-credit coursework in CompTIA A+, Security+, and Visual Basic. She is also proficient in tools such as MS Word, Excel, Access, and DOS. WQDas reflects Najma’s unique blend of environmental expertise, technical skill, and leadership—designed to help agencies, nonprofits, and riverkeepers streamline data workflows, ensure data quality, and simplify regulatory reporting with confidence.
