Coast Watchers Citizen Science Program

Lake Huron’s immense 6,170 km of shoreline is the longest of all the Great Lakes, and therefore cannot feasibly be monitored in detail by one agency alone. This is where the role of citizen scientists becomes crucial in recording changes to our coast.

What is a citizen scientist?: "an individual who voluntarily contributes his or her time, effort, and resources toward scientific research in collaboration with professional scientists or alone. These individuals don't necessarily have a formal science background” (SciStarter.org, 2020). The success of the Coast Watchers program relies on these dedicated and reliable volunteer citizen scientists to remain successful and provide valuable long-term data set.

Since 2005, Coast Watchers has been a major program of the Lake Huron Centre for Coastal Conservation, designed to engage members of the community to take an active part in observing and improving the quality of our nearshore waters through individual actions. Community volunteers are trained to observe the coast, record qualitative and quantitative shoreline conditions, and take steps to initiate action when necessary, including beach clean-ups and habitat preservation.

Coast Watchers volunteers have become the eyes and ears of Lake Huron’s coast. With Coast Watcher volunteers collecting information methodically and consistently along the lakeshore, it will be possible to track conditions and trends long-term, and complete actions towards resiliency and sustainability in the short-term.

participants

in 2019

Programs | Coast Watchers

What do I do as a Coast Watcher?

Choose a section of beach in your area to collect information once per week.
Document your observations and readings on the field datasheet.
Submit the recorded information by email or regular mail monthly.
The Coastal Centre compiles the data into our long-term dataset for lake-wide monitoring.