Water Quality – Infomation Session

The CLLMM Research Centre in Goolwa is inviting the community to find out more about water quality!

If you have ever wanted to know what future water quality across the region will be, now is your chance!
A project led by researchers from the Virginia Tech Center for Ecosystem Forecasting in the U.S., in collaboration with the University of Adelaide, University of Western Australia, and Griffith University, has made significant progress in water quality modelling, using local monitoring data, to accurately forecast Alexandrina water quality up to 35 days in advance. The ability to forecast water quality like we forecast the weather will greatly assist with water quality management across the region. It will also provide the local community with vital information to help them make day-to-day decisions.

The CLLMM Research Centre is hosting the research team in a community discussion that will highlight the methods underpinning the modelling and demonstrate real-time water quality forecasts for Lake Alexandrina. The research team looks forward to receiving your feedback on these forecasts and how they can be developed and used, drawing on your local knowledge of the lake and its surrounding area.

Background on this water quality forecasting project:
Climate change and land use change are affecting the quality of water in lakes and reservoirs worldwide. This makes it urgent to find new ways to predict the future conditions of freshwater ecosystems for better management and use by communities. In both the U.S. and Australia, these issues are particularly serious, leading to collaboration between scientists, sensor networks, water quality models, and advanced technology in both countries.
In response, researchers from the Virginia Tech Centre for Ecosystem Forecasting teamed up with the University of Adelaide, the University of Western Australia, and Griffith University. We received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to hold planning workshops from 2023 to 2025.

One main goal of the project is to combine scientific knowledge with local insights to create forecast models for specific waterbodies, like Lake Alexandrina, to improve water quality management. We aim to predict water quality in a way similar to weather forecasts, helping to develop new strategies for managing water resources.