We are Canadian scientists using new techniques to transform how we monitor and protect our freshwater lakes. Ask us anything, Reddit…

**We have now wrapped us this chat and returned to the lake, but you can continue to access the answers by clicking here**

 

We are researchers at IISD Experimental Lakes Area (or IISD-ELA to its friends), which is one of the very few places in the world where you can conduct big experiments on whole lakes over the long term, and where we have tracked the health of fresh water—and a changing climate—for over 50 years.

 

Over the last decade, we have been transforming how we monitor the health of our lakes to make the results more accurate and easier to obtain with less of an impact on wildlife.

 

This work ranges from innovating new sampling techniques that avoid sacrificing animals—like scraping the mucus off a fish, then placing it back in the lake, to understand its health—to placing sensors across our lakes so we can keep track of them in real time from the comfort of our desks.

 

We have also been working hard to make our unparalleled dataset on the health of our lakes more available to researchers and the public. Oh, and we are now working on using the DNA that animals shrug off and leave behind as they make their way through the environment in order to estimate populations.

 

All of what we discover in these 58 lakes (and their watersheds) in a remote part of Ontario up in Canada becomes data we are excited to share with the world. This data then influences the policies that governments and industries across the globe implement to protect fresh water for future generations.

 

We (Sonya Havens, Chris Hay, Scott Higgins, Michael Paterson, and Thomas Saleh) have learned so much over the last 10 years, and now we want to share what we have learned with you.

 

So, on Thursday, January 26, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. (CST), tap out your burning questions on your keyboard or screen and ask us absolutely anything*.

 

*Within reason, of course…