Big investments announced for the University of Windsor.
More than $1.77-million in funding will be granted to support the university's leadership of the Real-Time Aquatic Ecosystem Observation Network (RAEON), a Canada Foundation for Innovation-funded network focused on the Great Lakes.
This grant is part of CFI's initiative to award $15.25-million to a collaborative freshwater observational research network known as the Global Water Futures Observatories.
Aaron Fisk, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Changing Great Lakes Ecosystems, says this funding is crucial to operations such as RAEON.
"The reality is you've seen the floods in B.C., there were droughts last year in Manitoba and now there's floods, the Great Lakes are at an all time high and we see erosion in Lake Erie," he continued. "We can't ignore these problems and we need the instrumentation and the expertise and this network to deal with this and to create new solutions."
He says it's important to receive funding for things like instruments and researchers.
"Water is very valuable and a very valuable commodity, and it's critical for life, and the changes to climate and the changes to precipitation are threatening water supplies for the world. And in order to really study, and manage, and get the data, and do the research so that we can manage these things properly, we need these types of cutting edge instrumentation."
Fisk adds that it's crucial to involve students from schools across the country.
"So graduate students do all the work, but they also bring ideas and they bring energy. And so, that's part of it. They come and they're good at doing research, and they learn to do research. And then we're training the next generation of research scientists, of professors, or some of these people will work for municipalities, or ERCA, or those kinds of things," he said.
Under the lead of the University of Saskatchewan, GWFO has brought together nine Canadian universities including Windsor, to create the largest freshwater observational research network in the country, and one of the largest globally.