Smart Great Lakes
Advancing technology applications that improve our understanding, use, conservation, and management of the Great Lakes.
Over the past decade, smart technologies have transformed the world.
Sensors have been deployed across our lives and environments, artificial intelligence has become widely accessible, and our ability to analyze and act on that data has grown exponentially.
But many of the tools available to us today have yet to be applied to the Great Lakes with the full weight of the region’s collaborative spirit behind them. These technologies present a unique opportunity for addressing today’s Great Lakes challenges like never before, from safeguarding drinking water and understanding changing shorelines to preparing for effects of extreme weather events.
To make this vision a reality, in 2019 a group of organizations from the United States and Canada formed the Smart Great Lakes Initiative around common goals and priorities for:
Improving the way a diverse region learns about and responds to lake events
Informing critical policy
Directing future science and innovation
Science, Innovation, and Technology
Goal 1: Develop novel and interdisciplinary research
Goal 2: Support science, innovation, and technology that improve our ability to identify, assess and respond to stressors and change
Goal 3: Build resilient, adaptable observing systems in support of a swimmable, drinkable, and fishable future
Data and Information
Goal 4: Improve discoverability of Great Lakes data by increasing findability and accessibility
Goal 5: Foster data compatibility by developing a framework supporting interoperability and reusability
Goal 6: Empower data providers to share and access new data by facilitating reuse and access
Policy and Management
Goal 7: Ensure Smart Great Lakes provides opportunities and resources for the Indigenous Tribes, First Nations, and Métis within the Great Lakes basin through respectful engagement
Goal 8: Strengthen Great Lakes-related policies
Goal 9: Invest in Smart Great Lakes
Goal 10: Accelerate SGLi communication, outreach, education, and engagement
Initiative Partners
SGLi Partner Project Updates
Smart Great Lakes projects continue to progress across the region. Here are a few highlighted projects submitted by SGLi partners, as of February 2025.
These are just a few examples of projects that advance SGLi goals as part of our Common Strategy.
Common Strategy
The Smart Great Lakes Initiative released the “Common Strategy for Smart Great Lakes” on Oct. 5, 2021. Read the press release.
Smart Great Lakes Initiative’s Data and Information Survey Results
The Smart Great Lakes Initiative (SGLi) developed the survey to understand how Great Lakes data are discovered, accessed, and shared. The survey was sent to participants through SGLi partners by email and advertised through GLIN Announce. The 42 responses to the survey were accepted between August 2, 2023 and September 29, 2023.
SGL Mini-grants
Early in 2021, GLOS launched a mini-grant opportunity to help put more lake information in peoples’ hands and to support the Smart Great Lakes Initiative.
The diverse projects involved deploying new buoys, equipping old platforms to share data publicly, connecting platforms from the watershed, and supporting an Indigenous community-led monitoring effort.
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