Update the computing code of the Lower St. Lawrence Environmental Performance Indicators (IERM2D)

Year
2015
Topic

Aquatic Ecosystem Health

Project Description

The environmental performance indicators (PI) for the Lower St. Lawrence River (IERM2D) are a critical component of the evaluation of water level regulation plans for the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system and are important to maintain in an adaptive management perspective. These PIs have been created, programmed and used during the Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River (LOSLR) Study (2000-2005) and have been used many times since then for new plan assessment and other applications in the river. These 40 PIs represent 14 different components of the ecosystem; they are used to quantify the effect of discharge/level modifications for several floral or faunal resources. However, the coding version into which they were created (vb.Net 2008) is no longer supported. Consequently, these Performance Indicators are rapidly becoming obsolete and it is necessary to update them. This project will update and optimize the computer code associated with the environmental Performance Indicators (PI) for the lower St. Lawrence River. Code for all 40 performance indicators and associated utility applications will be redesigned and converted into PYTHON language. This will bring the Integrated Ecosystem Response Model 2D (IERM2D) for the Lower St. Lawrence River (IERM2D) to a usable condition and closer to an eventual “stand alone” application.

Outcome

Complete

Partners

ECCC