Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is dominated by agriculture and a developing urban landscape—which result in nutrient-rich runoff that enters into the county’s waterways. Lancaster’s rivers and creeks are part of the larger Susquehanna River Basin and feed into the Chesapeake Bay. While the Lancaster County Conservation District started monitoring the county’s waterways continuously about 5 years ago, the department is making a major upgrade over the next year as they switch from relying entirely on the internal storage of continuous sondes to real-time data loggers. Challenge: Telling the Story of Lancaster Through Data Since the Lancaster County Conservation District started monitoring county waterways, the goal has remained the same, according to Amanda Goldsmith, Watershed Specialist for the Watershed Department.

Syracuse, New York, is home to a number of urban creeks, ideal for monitoring the influence of human development on water resources. Syracuse University (SU) faculty, staff, and students have been monitoring the city’s waterways for over a decade, with Dr. Laura Lautz establishing a more formal program focused on collecting grab water samples from Meadowbrook Creek for laboratory analysis in 2012. Tao Wen, an Assistant Professor in SU’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, took over the program in 2020 and upgraded it to include 4G modems on continuous monitoring platforms, enabling real-time data viewing. Challenge: Evaluating Urban Land Use with Durable Systems

When the Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River were connected by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the 1880s, the region underwent a variety of environmental changes. While water control locks were installed in the 1930s and 1960s, the Sanibel area in Southwest Florida still suffered from deteriorating water quality due to runoff and pollution occurring up the river and surrounding watershed. Incoming nutrient loading caused massive algae drift/stranding events in 2005-2006, according to AJ Martignette, the Laboratory Manager with Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF). The water quality shifts also led to the increased frequency and severity of red tides as well as large salinity swings affecting sea grasses in the estuary and freshwater grasses in the river. In order to mitigate some of the damages, the SCCF stepped in to help develop a monitoring program that would help inform the USACE and the South Florida Water Management District when to release water and when to close off the connection between the lake and river. In 2007, what is now referred to as the River, Estuary and Coastal Observing Network, or simply RECON was created. Made up of 11 monitoring sites, the network tracks weather and water quality across Southwest Florida in order to ensure the residents can continue to rely on the aquatic system. Challenge: Environmental Conditions in Southwest Florida