A research team at the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) is working on an early warning system looking for areas of stress in the province’s coastal waterways.

Funded by the Nova Scotia Research and Innovation Trust and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Coastal Water Quality Prediction System measures water quality impacts in key areas such as shellfish harvesting beds or recreational beaches, and then presents the information in an easy to read map.

The mapping system, driven by powerful, industry-standard geospatial processing tools, can help regulators, water resource managers, and users better understand the environmental factors and uses that are putting pressure on waterways.

The early warning system looks at factors ranging from land use and solar radiation to rainfall, temperature, water level and the speed of the current.

The partnership driving the research includes scientists from the NSCC’s Applied Geomatics Research Group led by Dr. Bill Livingstone, Golder Associates Ltd., Scotia Weather Services Inc., ESRI Canada, and GeoNet Technologies Inc.