The Jefferson Project at Lake George has published its latest annual report highlighting how its environmental data gathering and analytics have made Lake George “The Smartest Lake in the World” and are providing science-based insights into how best to protect the lake from water quality threats, according to FUND for Lake George officials.
The report can be downloaded at jeffersonproject.rpi.edu or ordered in print form by calling The FUND for Lake George at (518) 668-9700.
The Jefferson Project is a groundbreaking partnership between IBM Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and The FUND for Lake George. The Project has deployed more than 500 “smart sensors” in and around the lake to monitor physical, chemical and biological conditions that signal emerging threats and help track the progress of lake protection initiatives.
Officials said monitoring data from the sensors are combined with data from chemistry and food web surveys of the lake and surrounding streams, as well as leading-edge experiments focusing on the multiple human stressors that impact freshwater ecosystems.
Collectively, this data informs highly advanced, coupled computer models that forecast the weather, run-off, lake circulation, and changes in the lake’s food web.
“All of the data fuel the project’s most powerful (modeling) tool, the Scenario Engine, that creates the capacity to anticipate environmental changes decades into the future,” the report said, and “establishes the ability to implement effective measures long before water quality declines.”
Featured in the report are overviews of the work the Jefferson Project is doing to understand, predict, and combat road salt pollution, invasive species and the excess nutrients from stormwater runoff and improperly treated wastewater that can lead to harmful algal blooms (HABs).
Lake George is the only one of 12 New York state lakes designated by the state for priority protection from HABs that has not experienced an outbreak, according to the FUND for Lake George. This, and the science-to-solutions progress achieved by the Jefferson Project, have led representatives from a number of HABs-impacted communities in New York and New Jersey to visit the Jefferson Project over the past year to observe and learn from its work.
“The Jefferson Project team has been structured to optimize our work in answering priority research questions critical to informing the sustained protection of Lake George,” the report said. “It now includes more than 100 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty, staff, and students; nearly two dozen IBM scientists and engineers; and the dedicated staff, consultants, and science and business advisors of The FUND for Lake George. We come from many diverse backgrounds but share one common commitment: to protect the Queen of American Lakes.”
