{"id":17352,"date":"2015-07-17T19:01:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T23:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.glensfalls.com\/glensfallsbusinessjournal\/2015\/07\/ibm-and-rpi-conducting-groundbreaking-hi-tech-research-project-on-lake-george.html"},"modified":"2015-07-17T19:01:22","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T23:01:22","slug":"ibm-and-rpi-conducting-groundbreaking-hi-tech-research-project-on-lake-george","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glensfalls.com\/glensfallsbusinessjournal\/2015\/07\/ibm-and-rpi-conducting-groundbreaking-hi-tech-research-project-on-lake-george\/","title":{"rendered":"IBM And RPI Conducting Groundbreaking Hi-Tech Research Project On Lake George"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n\"ibm\n<\/div>\n
IBM scientists Mike Kelly, left, and Harry Kolar deploy sensors that measure important lake characteristics which will be analyzed to help manage and protect Lake George\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Jefferson Project at Lake George, called
\none of the most ambitious research projects
\nto deploy “big data” and analytics technology
\nto manage and protect a body of fresh water,
\nis entering a new phase in which enormous
\namounts of data will be captured from sensors
\nand analyzed.<\/p>\n

A collaboration between IBM Research,
\nRensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the FUND
\nfor Lake George, the Jefferson Project involves
\nmore than 60 scientists from around the world
\nand IBM Research labs in Brazil, Ireland, Texas
\nand New York. The project is deploying Internet
\nof Things technology on a grand scale in conjunction
\nwith research and experimentation
\nto understand the ecology of large lakes and
\nthe impact of human activity, researchers said.
\nScientists anticipate that insights uncovered
\nfrom the data collection and discovery stage
\nof the project will not only help manage and
\nprotect one of America’s most famous lakes,
\nbut create a blueprint to preserve important
\nlakes, rivers and other bodies of fresh water
\naround the globe.<\/p>\n

The potential impact of these new developments
\nextends well beyond the shores of Lake
\nGeorge. By capturing and pooling data from
\nall sorts of sensors and swiftly analyzing it,
\nscientists, policy makers and environmental
\ngroups around the globe could soon accurately
\npredict how weather, contaminants, invasive
\nspecies and other threats might affect a lake’s
\nnatural environment.<\/p>\n

Armed with these new insights and a growing
\nbody of best practices, corrective actions could
\nbe taken in advance to protect fresh water
\nsources anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n

The Jefferson Project is named after President
\nThomas Jefferson, who described Lake
\nGeorge as, “without comparison, the most
\nbeautiful water I ever saw.” The three-year
\ninitiative aims to establish one of the world’s
\nmost sophisticated lake environmental monitoring
\nand prediction systems, giving scientists
\nand the community a real-time picture of the health of the lake.<\/p>\n

Thirty-five years of monitoring the chemistry
\nand algae in Lake George by scientists at RPI’s
\nDarrin Fresh Water Institute, in collaboration
\nwith the FUND for Lake George, have demonstrated
\nthe lake is changing, according to
\nscientists. Chloride inputs from road salt have
\ntripled, algae have increased by one third, and
\nfive invasive species have been introduced.<\/p>\n

These factors threaten entire regional economies
\ndriven by water recreation, boating and
\nother forms of tourism on fresh water lakes,
\nrivers and streams.<\/p>\n

Officials said the new phase of the project
\nis the culmination of several milestones. An
\narray of sophisticated sensors of different
\nshapes and sizes, including underwater sonar
\nbased sensors; customized software programs
\nand solar energy systems to power off-grid
\nequipment have now been deployed, tested
\nand refined. These enhancements have led
\nto greatly improved measurement data that
\nwill be used to better understand the lake and
\nlead to improvements in the accuracy of four
\npredictive models built by IBM researchers
\nthat precisely measure weather events, water
\nrun-off from the surrounding mountains into
\nthe lake, inputs of road salt to the lake, and
\nwater circulation.<\/p>\n

Even as the data collection and discovery
\nphase of the Jefferson Project ramps up, the
\nambitious initiative has already offered intriguing
\ninsights into Lake George. For example,
\nLake George flows south to north, with the
\nlake draining into Lake Champlain via the La
\nChute River. However, sensors deployed on the
\nlake bottom during the winter ice-over period
\nrecently confirmed complicated flow patterns
\nwithin Lake George, scientists said.<\/p>\n

The computing infrastructure powering the
\nJefferson Project involves multiple computing
\nplatforms, ranging from an IBM Blue Gene\/Q
\nsupercomputer located in a data center on
\nthe RPI campus to embedded, intelligentcomputing
\nelements and other Internet of
\nThings technology situated on various sensor
\nplatforms in and around the lake.<\/p>\n

“The Jefferson Project provides the unique
\nopportunity for biologists and environmental
\nscientists to work closely with engineers, physicists,
\ncomputer scientists and meteorologists to
\nunderstand large lakes at a level of detail and intensity that is simply unprecedented,” said
\nRick Relyea, project director. “Together, we will
\nmake tremendous inroads into understanding
\nhow lakes naturally behave and how human
\nactivities alter biodiversity, the functioning
\nof freshwater ecosystems, and overall water
\nquality.”<\/p>\n

“The world’s important bodies of fresh water
\nsuch as Lake George are precious to people, essential
\nto life and drive the economy, but they’re
\nunder siege from a growing list of threats,”
\nsaid Harry Kolar, IBM engineer and associate
\ndirector of the project. “The key to protecting
\nthis precious natural resource lies in the data,
\nand the stage is now set to discover a deluge of
\ninsights about the delicate ecology of the lake
\nand the factors that threaten it. The results of
\nour efforts will help drive new ways to protect
\nbodies of fresh water around the world.”<\/p>\n

“Never in the history of any freshwater lake
\nin the world has the caliber of science and
\ntechnology now being brought to Lake George
\nbeen applied for the purpose of sustaining
\nlake health, ‘from physics to fish,’ ” said Eric
\nSiy, executive director of the FUND for Lake
\nGeorge. “The empowered science of The Jefferson
\nProject will empower people to ensure
\nthe Lake is protected for future generations.”<\/p>\n

The work of the Jefferson Project builds
\non the findings from “The State of the Lake:
\nThirty Years of Water Quality Monitoring on
\nLake George, New York, 1980-2009,” a study
\nreleased in 2014 by RPI and the FUND for Lake
\nGeorge. For the past 35 years, research on Lake
\nGeorge was conducted manually, with scientists
\nlaboriously collecting water samples by hand
\nfor analysis in the lab.<\/p>\n

Officials said now with the Jefferson Project,
\nthis important work is being digitized and
\naccelerated, augmented with automated realtime
\ndata monitoring via a customized network
\nof sensors that collect massive amounts of
\ninformation and transmit it to supercomputers
\nfor analyses and modeling using sophisticated
\n3-D visualization technology.<\/p>\n

The project is also developing new tools,
\nsuch as image recognition software that
\nidentifies plankton from data collected via a
\nGPS-enabled towable camera, as well as stateof-
\nthe-art data visualizations that bring new
\ndata-driven discoveries to life for scientists,
\ntourists and local residents.<\/p>\n

Photo Courtesy IBM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IBM scientists Mike Kelly, left, and Harry Kolar deploy sensors that measure important lake characteristics which will be analyzed to help manage and protect Lake GeorgeThe Jefferson Project at Lake George, called one of the most ambitious research projects…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[80,103],"yoast_head":"\r\nIBM And RPI Conducting Groundbreaking Hi-Tech Research Project On Lake George - Glens Falls Business Journal<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.glensfalls.com\/glensfallsbusinessjournal\/2015\/07\/ibm-and-rpi-conducting-groundbreaking-hi-tech-research-project-on-lake-george\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"IBM And RPI Conducting Groundbreaking Hi-Tech Research Project On Lake George - 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