Dave Lutz and Team Study Cyanobacteria Blooms

A team of researchers lead by Research Assitant Professor Dave Lutz is sampling lakes across the Northeast this week as part of efforts to better understand what’s causing cyanobacteria blooms.

The blooms have become common in other parts of the country, including the Midwest, and are starting to pop up locally in New Hampshire and surrounding states. Scientists are unsure what’s driving the change.

The effort this week is something of a lake-sampling marathon. Researchers are rushing to collect data on a long list of lakes just as a satellite passes overhead. The goal is to then match up the information they collect on the ground with images from the sky.

“The reason that’s important is because, in a region like ours with so many lakes, you can’t have people out there all the time and measuring,” said Lutz.

But, he said, satellites are often flying over, collecting images all the time. So if his team can determine a relationship between water quality and what the satellite sees, they’ll have a great database to better study changes in the lakes over time.

http://www.nhpr.org/post/researchers-hit-nh-lakes-effort-understand-local-cyanobacteria-blooms#stream/0