News Releases

Winter has long been an overlooked season for Great Lakes monitoring and science. According to the International Joint Commission (IJC) Great Lakes Science Advisory Board’s new report, there are critical blind spots about what happens to the lakes during the winter. In their “Great Lakes Winter...

The board proposes tools to strengthen monitoring efforts through a regionally coordinated approach. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Windsor, Ontario Microplastics are present in all five of the Great Lakes, but there is no coordinated, basinwide effort to monitor and report on the status of plastic pollution...

The International Joint Commission's Great Lakes Science Advisory Board is hosting a session on a Great Lakes Early Warning System (GLEWS) at the upcoming virtual International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) Annual Conference, May 17-21, 2021. The first phase of the GLEWS project was...

There are many factors stressing the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem, but some issues like climate change are making other problems even worse. The International Joint Commission Science Advisory Board (SAB) Science Priority Committee’s new report, An Evaluation of Stressor Interactions in the...

Shallow Lake Erie must stick to its strict diet to starve its problematic algal blooms, but the four deeper Great Lakes face a tricky dilemma balancing their nutrient needs, according to a new report by the International Joint Commission’s (IJC) Great Lakes Science Advisory Board. Understanding...

What would it look like if we could anticipate the next big ecological threat to the Great Lakes before it happens? A new report from the International Joint Commission’s (IJC) Great Lakes Science Advisory Board (SAB) looks at what it might take to ‘get ahead of the curve’ and develop an early...

Between 2007 and 2012, the amount of commercial fertilizer applied to agricultural watersheds draining to the western Lake Erie basin declined in the United States but increased in Ontario, according to a 2019 supplemental study to the International Joint Commission’s 2018 report, Fertilizer...

According to a new report from the International Joint Commission’s (IJC) Great Lakes Research Coordination Committee (RCC), computer models used in an adaptive management framework can help assess outcomes of actions aimed at reducing nutrient runoff that feeds harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie...

We know that the Great Lakes are one interconnected watershed, with thousands of rivers and streams draining into the lakes. We can see these surface waters and understand their immensity and flows. What about the vast system of water under the Great Lakes known as groundwater? How can we measure...

Oil production in central northern United States and western Canada has increased rapidly since 2010. Its transport near or through the Great Lakes region via pipelines and rail has expanded as a result. What does this mean for the lakes in terms of the environmental threats posed by crude oil...

Do the Great Lakes provide safe, high quality drinking water? Can we swim and fish without health concerns? Are fish and other aquatic species thriving or declining? To answer these questions, scientists and governments must have accurate measures, or indicators, that reflect the health of the Great...

Do the Great Lakes provide safe, high quality drinking water? Can we swim and fish without health concerns? Are fish and other aquatic species thriving or declining? To answer these questions, scientists and governments must have accurate measures, or indicators, that reflect the health of the Great...

The International Joint Commission (IJC) is pleased to announce the appointment of members to its newly reconstituted Great Lakes Water Quality and Science Advisory boards.

The International Joint Commission (IJC) is pleased to announce the appointment of members to its newly reconstituted Great Lakes Water Quality and Science Advisory boards. The boards were established to assist the IJC in fulfilling its obligations under the renewed 2012 U.S- Canada Great Lakes...