Using Satellite Images to Conduct Near Real-Time Assessment of Algal Blooms on Prairie Lakes

Abstract

Millions of dollars are spent each year in Canada on protecting waterways from urban and agricultural pollutants, excess nutrient input and keeping fisheries healthy. Increasingly limited funding for research and monitoring has resulted in federal and provincial agencies with budgets that preclude extensive temporal and spatial sampling of many of these lakes, resulting in poorly understood water quality in the majority of Manitoba water bodies. Since the 1970s, only two whole lake water quality studies on Lake Manitoba, the 11th largest freshwater lake in the Canada, have been conducted.