Last year, Scott Williams (long-time LSM Executive Director) wrote a short article about the early years of VLMP and the treasure trove of Secchi data produced by volunteers.
As we close out the 51st year of VLMP/LSM, it is worth taking another look at some stats on the lake water quality data collected over the years. Here are some tallies *:
Here are 3 interactive visualizations exploring these data:
(* These totals refer to data through 2018; as of the end of 2022, DEP had not released the more recent data for upload to this website. Totals include data from all lake stations and dates.)
Did you know that you can participate in collecting community science data? Lake Stewards of Maine tracks ice-in and ice-out on lakes throughout the state. This does not require special equipment or certification, just your time, thoughtfulness, and willingness to help! To get involved you can go to Lake Stewards of Maine’s Ice Data Page and read more about the program.
Sebago 5786 Photo by Claudia & Phil Lowe
Lake Stewards of Maine monitors, ice-in (the time when ice covers the lake surface), partial ice cover (a transitory stage on the lake, either ice has melted on a warm winter day or ice has developed on an especially cold autumn or spring day), and ice-out (when ice no longer covers ~90% of the lake, or is insubstantial). Click here to see the data collected this year. To see historical ice data please contact stewards@lakestewardsme.org.
Submit data here and thank you!
Click here to view current water quality conditions on a representative sample of Maine lakes during summer, or view which lakes have experienced ice-cover in the fall and ice-out in the spring.
The majority of data on lakesofmaine.org comes from certified volunteer citizen scientists. If you are interested in finding a monitoring opportunity, please visit Lake Stewards of Maine or contact our office at 207-783-7733. Email is stewards@LakeStewardsME.org
LakesOfMaine.org sees more than 1,000,000 pageviews annually.
Click here to inquire about becoming a Partner in Lake Stewardship.