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Category: Freshwater Initiative

March 26, 2024
The Freshwater Initiative: What’s Ahead for 2024

The Cape Cod Freshwater Initiative is a science-based, information-driven planning process that engages stakeholders and enables action to protect and restore Cape Cod’s freshwater resources. It began in 2021 with an update to the Cape Cod Ponds Atlas. Since then, the team has been working to collect the data needed to make informed management decisions in our ponds and to better understand how they are changing from season to season and year to year.

December 21, 2023
Assessing the economic impact of Cape Cod’s ponds

We know that Cape Cod’s 890 ponds and lakes add to the region’s natural beauty, but how much do they impact our region’s economy?

November 20, 2023
November 2023: From the Executive Director

Last year we launched the Cape Cod Freshwater Initiative to enable action to protect and restore our freshwater ponds and lakes.

November 20, 2023
The Freshwater Initiative: A Limnologist’s Perspective

To understand the dynamics at work affecting water quality in ponds, Commission staff sought a specialist familiar with the biogeochemical interactions in freshwater bodies, the monitoring metrics needed to track these interactions, and potential strategies to address water quality problems. A limnologist helps us ask the right questions, delve deeply into the potential sources of the issues, and consider solutions to water quality decline.

November 20, 2023
Cape Cod Regional Pond Monitoring inaugural season complete

The first season of the Cape Cod Regional Pond Monitoring Program has come to a close, with final samples collected from the region’s ponds in early November.

November 1, 2023
Cape Cod Commission receives grant to enhance water quality monitoring with satellite imagery

The Cape Cod Commission will lead an effort to expand satellite-derived water quality data collection and analysis and enhance existing pond monitoring efforts, funded by a $298,527 Southeast New England Program (SNEP) Priority Research Grant.

October 27, 2023
The Freshwater Initiative: Enhanced data collection proving successful

The first year of the new Cape Cod Regional Pond Monitoring Program concludes this month.

June 26, 2023
Enhanced regional pond monitoring program underway

An effort to collect comprehensive data on our region's ponds is underway. The Cape Cod Regional Pond Monitoring Program, developed and implemented in collaboration with the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, will collect data from 50 representative Cape Cod ponds every month, seven months per year, for three years, with the hopes of identifying funding to sustain the program into the future.  

May 30, 2023
The Freshwater Initiative: Examining and categorizing management strategies across the region 

Stormwater runoff, development, erosion, invasive species, and septic system discharge impact the health of Cape Cod's 890 ponds. Across the region, management strategies of different types and scales are being implemented to improve water quality and overall pond health.  

April 28, 2023
New technology helps deepen understanding of pollutant flow near ponds

Cape Cod Commission staff are using hydrologic response units to identify at-risk sections of pond buffers, better understand pollutant flow, and develop effective solutions.

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