Published: 2014
Total Pages: 62
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How are the Great Lakes doing and what progress are we making in protecting and restoring them? These are two of the most frequently asked questions about the largest source of surface fresh water in the world. Unfortunately, we do not have simple answers for them. With the tremendous efforts and resources invested in restoration by governments, the private sector, and non-profit organizations in the United States and Canada over the past 40 years, we need to be able to respond much more clearly and definitively in the future. Recognizing this, the International Joint Commission (IJC) through its Science Advisory Board and Water Quality Board initiated a project to put the Great Lakes community in a position to respond. The focus of the work is to identify a limited number of ecosystem indicators especially important to the health of the Great Lakes basin ecosystem and which tell us the most about it. Extensive work has been done over the years to measure the condition of the Lakes as part of the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference (SOLEC), and this work will form the basis for many of the indicators. What is being done now is selecting "the fewest that tell us the most." The need for key indicators is even greater now with a new Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (the Agreement) between the United States and Canada. The two countries have determined that we should be able to drink the water, eat the fish, and swim at the beaches. To assess progress toward these goals and the overall condition of the Lakes, the indicators presented in this report are aligned with the chemical, physical and biological integrity framework included in the Agreement. The focus here is on ecological indicators. Indicators for public health will be covered in a separate, but related, report.