Tracking Historic and Current Water Quality of the Charles River

Project Partner: Charles River Watershed Association

Project Summary: The Charles River provides important ecosystem and recreation services to humans and animals alike, so ensuring the river is clean supports the Boston community. Further, tracking the water quality of the river and sharing this information will better inform people in the Boston community about the watershed “in their backyard.” 

Lydia partnered with the Charles River Watershed Association to make water quality data for the Charles River more accessible to everyone, including researchers, governmental officials, and students, who want to learn more about the river. They documented all the different sources of water quality data for the Charles River, as all the data that are currently available is provided by a plethora of organizations with some requiring a coding background to understand, and created a final report. They also implemented a more robust procedure for the CWRA’s cyanobacteria bloom tracking program.

 This final report will be the stepping stone for the CRWA to further aggregate the data and create a “Charles River Data Hub” that will include all documented water quality data for the Charles River. 

Picture 1: Photo of Lydia collecting a concentrated water sample with a plankton tow net.

Picture 2: Photo of Lydia counting the number of units and cells per unit in the cyanobacteria samples they collected. 

Project Deliverables: The final report was distributed internally to the watershed and data scientists of the CRWA. Also, check out the TikTok video Lydia made showcasing the steps involved in participating in the CRWA’s visual cyanobacteria monitoring program!