Nonprofit environmental agency Save the Sound has launched a water quality database tool.
They say it will help policymakers and local governments decide how to protect the Long Island Sound.
Peter Linderoth is with Save the Sound. He said the digital tool, called Quickdrops, already has a vast array of important data.
“Including parameters such as dissolved oxygen, a key metric for how well the water supports aquatic life,” Linderoth said. “Pathogen indicator bacteria are used to determine how safe the water is for human recreation. Nitrogen is used to assess concentrations of one of the leading threats to ecological health in our region, namely excess nitrogen, which leads to numerous adverse conditions in the water.”
Save the Sound said the database is the first of its kind, designed to collect, manage and broadly share water quality data specific to the Long Island Sound watershed.
Volunteers from various environmental and research agencies in New York and Connecticut have collected data, which is free to use.