Case Studies

A complex series of locks and dams up and down the Ohio River enable interstate commerce, travel, and recreation. But maintaining a usable pathway for watercraft comes at a cost. The inevitable byproducts of disrupting the river’s natural systems are a threat to local wildlife. To combat this, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) […]

The Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi (NHBP) is facing the future with a firm grasp on tradition and a mastery of new technology to handle rapid growth and changes. Recognized as a tribe by the US federal government in 1995, the NHBP employs thousands in western and central Michigan. Since its inception, restoring its land […]

Sebago Lake is the second largest lake in Maine—one of the only lakes in the nation with clean enough water for use by a drinking water facility without filtration requirements. Residents of the Greater Portland area are the beneficiaries, and they are invested in maintaining their lake's health. A joint project between the Portland Water […]

Corals around the world are under threat. The buoys of the Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) help face that threat, providing the entire world with weather patterns and data about climate change from their home in the Caribbean Sea. Since June 2018, a new, state-of-the-art oceanographic buoy has added ocean state and weather data […]

The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office runs an unusual set of buoys. NOAA’s Chesapeake buoys originated as part of the John Smith Water Trail—a kind of aquatic Appalachian Trail for boaters. Although the buoys are no longer used as interpretive trail markers, they are now part of a larger observing system of 10 full-time stations. Challenge: […]

Even before the Toledo Water Crisis, researchers at Stone Lab were concerned with the algae blooming in Lake Erie. With their location on the lake’s Gibraltar Island, it was easy for them to see the tides whipping up green stuff each day in the summer months. So long before the crisis, which took place in […]

The Chicago Park district is one of the largest municipal park managers in the nation with 8,100 acres of green space spread across 580 different parks. It also manages many indoor facilities, historical landmarks and beaches. At eight of its most popular beaches, the district has used cellular data buoys, for four years, in an […]

For some time, sockeye salmon weren’t able to reach Oregon’s Suttle Lake due to barriers along the Deschutes and Metolius Rivers that kept them out. But thanks to recent remediation efforts, the lake has recently been seeing more sockeyes migrating from the Pacific Ocean to spawn. That would be no problem if the lake had […]

The Avalon Back Bay Maintenance Dredging Project, aimed to clear out portions of New Jersey’s Princeton Harbor and other surrounding harbors to maintain proper depths for shipping and recreation. The dredging project seeks to remove 120,000 cubic yards of material, a great deal of which has already been placed on Graven’s Island. The Borough of […]

Despite Lake Nipissing’s popularity as a destination for tourists and fishermen in Ontario, Canada, relatively little is known about nutrient availability for algae that sometimes blooms there. Luckily, several investigators at the University of Saskatchewan and Nipissing University are working to fill the gap in understanding. Key to answering their questions is learning more about […]