Across Canada, community-based monitoring networks are emerging as a means of engaging citizen scientists in collecting, analysing and sharing data about water quality and biological parameters.

Within Manitoba, many community and school groups have started water monitoring projects to engage students, landowners, cottagers, Indigenous nations and concerned lake-lovers. These citizen scientists are learning about the health of Manitoba’s waters and engaging in solutions as they collect water samples across the province.

Though active and enthusiastic, the Lake Winnipeg Foundation (LWF) observed that these groups were not currently co-ordinated within a larger network, and often did not have the ability to analyze their data and share information beyond their school or community. This is not for lack of interest – rather, local resources are limited and citizen scientists didn’t have the opportunity to understand how their local data is part of a larger story taking shape throughout Manitoba.

LWF is bringing these groups together to establish a strong community-based monitoring (CBM) network in Manitoba, supplied with standardised monitoring protocols developed by LWF’s science advisers. This CBM network will:

Engage citizen scientists as champions for water health - particularly with respect to Lake Winnipeg, which is struggling with the negative effects of eutrophication; Identify phosphorus hot spots on the landscape to ensure funding and action can be targeted to areas of greatest impact; and *Ensure a comprehensive, credible data set informs research and policy priorities.