Check out this news video and article featuring CompCON and the CCS and Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation partnership:

Original article by Jessica Halpern at Fox4-WFTX:

Local experts to collaborate with University of Florida to protect paradise

The University of Florida plans to use Southwest Florida water to do advanced research that will help address water quality issues across the state.

It’s teaming up with Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) to do this.

SCCF has been working to protect and care for our area’s coastal ecosystems for decades. Its marine lab currently does research in Charlotte Harbor, the Caloosahatchee, and Gulf of Mexico.

Now it’s teaming up with the University of Florida’s newly established Center for Coastal Solutions (CCS) to address coastal water quality hazards.

The initiative will fight for the clean water our local economy, and other coastal communities, depend on.

Deciding to pilot the program in Southwest Florida had to do with the unique technology SCCF already uses to monitor our water.

“Our team of more than 25 faculty looked into estuaries across the state of Florida to serve as test beds to pilot our Comprehensive Coastal Observing Network (CompCON) and very soon honed into the Caloosahatchee River-Charlotte Harbor Estuary system because of the unique technical capabilities offered by RECON,” said Christine Angelini, Ph.D., Director of UF-CCS.

She said that the high-resolution, real-time data it provides is unlike anything else in Florida.

In addition to using RECON, CompCON will also feature artificial intelligence analysis.

The new partnership will help our area, our state, and eventually even more places to combat the effects of climate change and human hazards to our water.

The pilot program will begin this summer.