Lake George

The Jefferson Project (JP) at Lake George—a collaboration between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, IBM Research, and The FUND for Lake George—is a sophisticated technological approach to studying fresh water, with a goal of understanding the impact of human activity on fresh water, and how to mitigate those effects. Research includes traditional sampling of lake chemistry and food webs combined with a Smart Sensor Network that uses adaptive sampling and an IoT network.  This includes 12 stream sensors, 5 vertical profilers, 11 ADCPs, and 14 weather stations. The JP also has a large experimental effort, ranging from highly controlled lab experiments to land-based mesocosms to in-lake mesocosms. The research also includes high-resolution models of weather, runoff, lake circulation, and food webs.  The three physical models are coupled and operational, which means they produce a 36-hour forecast every day.  Finally, these models are being brought together to produce a Scenario Engine that will predict the outcomes of different policy scenarios, projected out for several decades, including different climate change models. These efforts at understanding human activities are then used to inform decision makers about how we can best use the science to inform real-world solutions for sustained lake protection.