The St. Louis River Estuary, located at the headwaters of Lake Superior, is nearing a major milestone: its anticipated delisting as a Great Lakes Area of Concern by 2030. Yet even as remediation and restoration successes are celebrated, new environmental stressors, particularly harmful algal blooms, raise concerns about the estuary’s long-term water quality health. In response, a group of local, state, federal, and tribal partners who have long worked in and cared for the estuary began calling for a science-based monitoring strategy that could respond to emerging threats and support ongoing stewardship beyond delisting. This group of partners, who had long advocated for a coordinated monitoring effort, collaborated closely with the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve to launch this collaborative research project.

Together, they shaped a shared vision: a comprehensive program of observations, analyses, and public reporting that would protect remediation and restoration investments and inform future decision-making. The partners and project team developed a research approach that combined strong scientific design to build foundational understanding of phytoplankton dynamics with a focus on generating practical, actionable insights for a shared long term monitoring strategy. In this webinar, the project team will share more about predictors of cyanobacteria biovolume identified in the estuary and an actionable sampling approach they developed to improve bloom detection and efficient water quality monitoring into the future.