Developing an Integrated Data Infrastructure for Lake Erie Citizen Science

Session: Smart Lakes: Real-Time Monitoring, Networking, and Analytics Across the Great Lakes (2)

Max Herzog, Cleveland Water Alliance, [email protected]

Abstract

The Laurentian Great Lakes are home to a robust community of citizen scientists and support organizations. A multitude of groups that care deeply about their local watershed, creek, river, or lake collect quality and quantity data for the purposes of advancing responsible water management in their communities. This is a tremendous wealth of data that, all to often, is never leveraged beyond its local context. This project revolves around the question, what impact could organization and integration citizen science efforts at scale have on a Great Lake?

The Great Lakes One Water (GLOW) program, a coalition of Great Lakes Community Foundations has funded Cleveland Water Alliance to organize a series of citizen science hubs in communities around Lake Erie with the goal of aggregating the data already being collected locally to be analyzed for regional impact. The backbone of this process will be the construction of a data infrastructure that will integrate and validate existing data collection to draw additional insights into regional issues such as erosion and nutrient pollution. Though in it's early stages, this three-year project promises to transform the way we look at citizen science for a Great Lake.

Twitter handle of presenter
@CLEH2Oalliance