From 1996 through 1998, the Massachusetts Water Watch Partnership cooperated with the U.S. Geological Survey and Mass. Department of Environmental Management on a Satellite Ground Truthing project. Volunteers sampled their lakes on days when the LandSat satellite was overhead. USGS bought the LandSat images and is correlating the image signatures with the lake data for the purpose of assessing lake health from LandSat images in the future.

Ground Data for 1998:

Find summer 1998 ground data for participating lakes. Click on the button in front of the lake of interest to view data.

Bearse Pond, Box Pond, Chandler Pond, Cliff Pond, East Lake Waushacum, Flax Pond, Fort Meadow Reservoir, Goose Pond
Jenkins Pond, Lake Boon, Lake Maspenock
Lake Metacomet. Lake Onota, Lake Singletary
Lake Waban, Lake Watatic, Lake Winnekeag, Lake Winthrop
Lake Wyola, Laurel Lake, Little Cliff Pond, Lower Naukeag Lake, Middle Pond, Mystic Lake
Other Lakes

Chlorophyll a indirectly measures how much algae are in the lake. The more algae, the greener the lake and the more eutrophied (over-enriched) it is. How much is too much? We've highlighted in red lakes with high chlorophyll. Here is a table to compare total chlorophyll numbers to:
Status.................Total Chlorophyll (µg/l)
Oligotrophic.................... 0-4
Mesotrophic................... 4-12
Eutrophic...................... 12-50
Hyper-eutrophic........... 50-2000

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**Sample lost or not received
***Sample processed by another lab, not received by WRRC