UW professor Nandita Basu has recently been awarded a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Alliance grant for her project POSEIDON. The project aims to improve how water quality is measured and analyzed by using a web-based portal.
The Canadian government has stated that it would support projects like POSEIDON, which aim to improve water quality and prevent harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes. These blooms form as a result of excess nutrients being present in ever-warming waters, and pose a danger to the ecological health of the lakes and all who depend on them.
Basu said that currently, water data collection happens “in a sparse way.” Data about water quality in streams is collected, and researchers receive 12 data points per year. Scientists then estimate the daily water quality using information from machine learning, rainfall, temperature, and other related areas.
One of POSEIDON’s current goals is to create these kinds of calculations for the present moment. To achieve this, the team behind the project is working on creating and improving several analytic models, which will allow researchers to predict daily nutrient concentrations and loads in streams. The results of these models will then be made available through the POSEIDON web portal, so that policymakers, local organizations, and other researchers can develop custom strategies for combating water pollution.
There are many opportunities for students who want to get involved in this research and work with Basu. One of her suggestions is looking into co-op opportunities, as the POSEIDON team will hire students as the project progresses. Reaching out about undergraduate internships or graduate studies is also possible. Basu says that there will be a number of webinars in the future “to get people more familiar with the portal.” She notes that feedback from the community, including students, will also play a large role in the project’s development.
Basu began thinking about water quality in the Great Lakes Basin in 2020 through a project called “Lake Futures.” She worked on developing water quality models for the project, which was part of the larger Global Water Futures research initiative. Basu discovered that there were many people in Ontario who were interested in these models, but wanted access to more real-time data. She noted that with many of these kinds of research projects, scientists collect data over time and publish their findings afterwards. Though valuable, this unfortunately means that information is not able to be published in real time.
Inspiration for POSEIDON occurred after considering this dilemma and exploring what potential solutions could look like, Basu explained. She had asked: “Is there a way . . . we can make [data] more available, real-time, to communities?”
The next step, which Basu hopes will happen in the fall or early winter, will be to host a workshop with the project’s partners where the portal is tested. This will allow the team to learn what has worked and what needs improving. After the workshop, the team would work on updating the portal based on comments they receive, which would in turn lead to another round of consultation, as the portal continues to improve and develop.
“We will develop [the] portal based on continuous interaction with our partners in the community,” Basu says of the collaborative process.
Although POSEIDON focuses solely on providing current water quality data, Basu hopes to make future data predictions in the coming years. Researchers would plan to use future climate predictions to make estimates about water quality — for example, the amount of phosphorus concentration found in a stream six months from now.
To learn more about Basu’s work, visit nanditabasu.weebly.com.
