The University of Windsor is one of 30 projects who will receive funding to clean-up and restore the health of the Great Lakes .
The Ontario government is investing $6-million to support projects that will help protect, conserve, and restore the Great Lakes.
These investments will help reduce plastic litter, excess nutrients and road salt entering lakes, rivers and streams, advance climate resiliency, and make significant progress on restoring environmentally degraded areas.
Locally, the Local Great Lakes restoration projects will be working with the University of Windsor to learn more about the land-to-lake connection at nutrient monitoring stations entering the western basin of Lake Ontario.
This local project will give more insight into dominant species entering the lakes, and where the nutrients are coming from.
The University Of Windsor will receive $199,200 for their project for a two-year study.
Dr. Chris Weisener, professor at the University of Windsor associated with the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, says they have done research throughout Lake Erie and the Detroit River, but have moved to a different lake.
"We get to look at a gradient of river systems impacting the lower part of Lake Ontario with developing and understanding of looking at microbial source tracking that's related to nutrient inputs in urban settings."
He says this research can help locally with things such as poor water quality.
"If we see excess stress in a particular water body and we can tie that or link that back to the microbial indicator that we're studying, then we get a measure about how fast that system is basically being returned or responding to improvements."
Dr. Weisener says they were chosen by the Ontario government.
"Dr. Mike McKay and myself, we've been involved with this type of research for a number of years. And I guess it kind of circulated through the system of word-of-mouth. But, that's always a good thing."
Funding for the Great Lakes Program is part of the Ontario government's $14-million in annual investments to further protect, conserve and restore the health of the Great Lakes.
Ontario's Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River shoreline is the longest freshwater coastline in the world measuring 10,000 kilometres.