Yeah Buoy! - How public outreach can provide sustainable funding for operational monitoring

Session: Beyond Peer Review: Why You Must Connect Your Science to Stakeholders (and how to do it) (3)

Ed Verhamme, LimnoTech, [email protected]

Abstract

Think outreach can't have a direct impact?  Consider this, In 2019 LimnoTech will  deploy ten buoys on Lake Michigan and Erie and nearly half of them are funded based soley on public relations goals.  Access to information on real-time conditions is valuable to the nearly 50,000 individuals that visit data websites maintained by the Great Lakes Observing System.  This presentation will describe how the necessity to do outreach was never a primary objective on the front side of these projects, but after funding ended public support kept the project going.