Can you suggest changes to traditional monitoring well construction and development methods that would better compliment a low-flow, no-purge sampling regimen?

I am an advocate for better well design and construction methods.  First of all, make sure that the sand pack gradation selected and the slot size of the well screen that goes with the sand pack is truly appropriate for the setting. When in doubt, the old approach of using a sieve analysis still works very well.  It’s time consuming, but it gives you the best match rather than just using the standard 10 or 20 slot screen and using the 20x40 or 10x20 sand that is typically used with those slots.  I also strongly advocate well development in any formation that can yield water.  If you have a well that is set in a very low-yield formation, well development may become virtually impossible to do.  There is some amount of purging, bailing or surging that you can do to remove some solids from the well, but at the end of the day, you still can’t get water to flow very fast in a very low-yield setting. But, as long as the well produces at least a small amount of water, maybe half a liter to a liter per minute, and using a well development method such as surging, followed by pumping and doing this until you have sufficiently cleared up the water, so that you get very low turbidity water is critically important. For low-flow purging and sampling, these are important, but actually these approaches are really necessary for just about any monitoring well construction. One thing to mention: many times the sand pack in the well screen is set and then the seal is set before the well is developed. It’s very important to actually develop the well and get the sand pack to settle and make sure that it’s above the top of the screen before the seal is set in place. This can also help to reduce turbidity in wells.