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Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) is an international grass-roots, voluntary network of researchers, educators, and community groups interested in making and utilizing time series of high-frequency observations made on and in lakes and reservoirs all over the world. GLEON includes more than 60 lakes and more than 260 individual members from 34 countries on six continents (as of April 2011).
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Goals
The goal is to understand, predict, and communicate the impact of natural and anthropogenic influences on lake and reservoir ecosystems. The researchers include limnologists, ecologists, information technology experts, and engineers who have a common objective of building and growing a scalable, persistent network of lake ecology observatories; developing new theoretical models based on the more extensive spatial and temporal scales of data; integrating new technologies to utilize the data; educating a new generation of researchers; and engaging the public. Each lake or reservoir observatory consists of one or more instrumented platforms capable of sensing key limnological variables and moving the data in near-real time to web-accessible databases. A common web portal will allow easy access to researchers and the public. A series of web services supported by this portal will allow computation of metrics based on the high frequency data. The types of sensors employed at these observatories include: temperature, dissolved oxygen, dissolved carbon dioxide, phytoplankton pigments such as chlorophyll and phycocyanin, as well as devices that detect water movements such as acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP.) Many of the observatories also track meteorological parameters on the lake such as solar radiation, wind speed, and relative humidity. Data from the network of observatories will allow a better understanding of key processes such as the effects of climate and land use change on lake or reservoir function, the role of episodic events such as typhoons in resetting aquatic dynamics, and carbon cycling within lakes and reservoirs. For more information, visit the GLEON website at gleon.org.