Environmental monitoring is an important way scientists can gauge thehealth of the Great Lakes. Yet according to a new study, the monitoringof at least one of the lakes is not being done well enough. The GreatLakes Radio Consortium’s Dale Willman reports:
Environmental monitoring is an important way scientists can gauge the health of the
Great Lakes. Yet according to a new study, the monitoring of at least one of the lakes is
not being done well enough. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dale Willman
Monitoring an ecosystem such as the Great Lakes means collecting data for a
number of indicators over a period of time. Scientists then use that data to
determine the system’s health…
“It gives us baseline information so that we know if a change has taken place in
the environment, and helps us to identify what the source of that change is.”
Ric Lawson is part of a team that attempted to do a complete inventory of indicators
for Lake Michigan. He says they had two major problems – the first is that some
observations simply are not being made. But perhaps most importantly, he says,
those that are being made are not being collected all in one place, so people can find
them. And the other lakes apparently face the same problems. The researchers are
recommending that a central data collection point be established.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dale Willman.