From data to knowledge: Designing user-driven nutrient loading observatories across the Great Lakes Basin

几十年来，五大湖的健康状况一直备受关注。五大湖对加拿大人的福祉至关重要，因为它们拥有世界上近20%的地表淡水，创造了数十亿美元的经济活动，并为四分之一的加拿大人提供饮用水。五大湖下游水质面临的最大威胁之一是日益频繁和严重的藻华。这是由于过量的营养物质，如磷，从农业和城市土地用途进入我们的水道而产生的。为了应对水质挑战，两国制定了双边目标，例如2012年《五大湖水质协议》（GLWQA）推动的目标，该协议导致加拿大和美国承诺将伊利湖的磷负荷减少40%。对于加拿大来说，要实现这些目标，了解营养物质进入水道的热点是至关重要的。这是一项挑战，因为水质监测是有限的，数据存在很大差距，导致缺乏做出明智决策所需的知识。我们的项目将通过开发基于网络的工具waterscape来解决这一差距，该工具将使用当前的稀疏浓度和每日排放数据，并使用复杂的统计和机器学习模型来预测五大湖流域的每日浓度和负荷。水质数据集将由我们的合作伙伴（联邦政府、省政府、信贷谷保护管理局、DataStream）提供，研究团队将使用这些数据集以及一套预测变量，如温度、坡度、降水和土地利用，用于模型开发。该门户网站将免费向所有人开放，并向保护当局和管理机构提供他们需要的关键信息，以便优先进行额外的监测，并设计有针对性和具有成本效益的措施，以减少流域的污染。利用这一工具产生的新知识不仅将有助于了解加拿大如何实现其水质目标，而且还将有助于采取必要的行动，使社区参与并增强其能力，提供获得安全、高质量饮用水的机会，支持健康的栖息地，并允许休闲利用湖泊。

The health of the Great Lakes has been an ongoing concern for decades. The Great Lakes are vital to the well-being of Canadians as they contain almost 20% of the world's surface freshwater, creating billions of dollars in economic activity, and providing drinking water for 1 in 4 Canadians. One of the greatest threats to water quality in the lower Great Lakes is the increasing frequency and severity of algal blooms. These occur in response to excess nutrients, such as phosphorus, that enter our waterways from agricultural and urban land uses. Binational targets have been developed to address water quality challenges, such as those driven by the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), which resulted in a commitment by Canada and the U.S. to reduce phosphorus loads to Lake Erie by 40%. For Canada to meet such goals, it is crucial to know the hotspots where nutrients are entering waterways. This is challenging, given water quality monitoring is limited and there are large gaps in data, resulting in a lack of the knowledge needed to make informed decisions. Our project will address this gap by developing a web-based tool WATERSCAPES that will use current sparse concentration and daily discharge data, and use sophisticated statistical and machine learning models to predict daily concentrations and loads across the Great Lakes basin. Water quality datasets will be provided by our partners (Federal government, Provincial government, Credit valley Conservation Authority, DataStream), and the research team will use this along with a suite of predictor variables such as temperature, slope, precipitation and land use for model development. The portal will be free and accessible to all and provide conservation authorities and regulatory agencies the critical information they need to prioritise additional monitoring, as well as design targeted and cost-effective measures for reducing pollution in watersheds. The new knowledge generated using this tool will not only help inform how Canada can meet its water quality targets, but will also contribute to the actions required to engage and empower communities, provide access to safe, high-quality drinking water, support healthy habitats, and allow for recreational use of the lakes.