Niagara Coastal Community Based Water Monitoring

Niagara Coastal is a non-profit organization with a collective approach to environmental governance. We unite coastal residents, eNGOs, educational institutes, and various levels of government with a common agenda of building a healthy and resilient Great Lakes coastal ecosystem that can support the needs of the community.

We operate various community initiatives, including the Visual Assessment Survey Tool (VAST), which engages people in capturing photos of the Great Lakes shoreline to monitor the coast.

Water quality data are collected using tools in the Water Rangers Freshwater Explorer testkit, including portable probes and test strips, conductivity meter, secchi disc, and dissolved oxygen tests. Long term trends are tracked and logged on the Water Rangers data platform.