The University of Windsor has joined a national network to observe freshwater ecosystems to help find solutions to water issues in Canada.
The Global Water Futures Observatories, led by the University of Saskatchewan, collects data from basins, lakes, rivers and wetlands. Seven other universities are also involved in the project including Waterloo, McMaster, Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier, Carleton, Western, and Trent.
The GWFO received more than $15 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s Major Science Initiative in 2022 to establish the network.
The University of Windsor's Real-Time Aquatic Ecosystem Observation Network (RAEON), launched in 2017, will continue its work through this new network.
"We are facing a serious crunch with regards to water because the climate is changing. That's the real emphasis of what we're trying to do here. We're collecting that data, we're doing research to understand how the systems work, how they're changing and then providing that data to the government, the decision-makers for management policies of the eco-systems," said Aaron Fisk with the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor.
Fisk indicated they use several instruments throughout the Great Lakes to collect that data.
"We have gliders that are autonomous that we put into the water and they move around the Great Lakes for three, four, five, six weeks collecting data," said Fisk. "Some of it is real-time, there's a buoy and it connects cellularly, we can go in at any time and look at waves or algae populations."
With the Canada Foundation for Innovation's grant funding, RAEON will be able to continue its research until 2029.
