Sarah Wheatley

DataStream is coming at a time where we’re all trying to collaborate more and increase data collecting, but do it in a way so that it is the most valuable – so that everybody can compare results and we’re not duplicating efforts. I think we have a lot of data that we haven’t been sharing as much as we could. If all the data is in a publicly available place, then anyone interested in water issues in PEI can go in there and start digging around and analyze data on a wider scale than we usually do.  Or they could find the data and say, ‘oh that’s interesting,’ and then contact me and maybe get more information, or give me some ideas that I hadn’t thought about.

The watershed groups generally just work in their own area. So I know what my nitrate levels are like, but I don’t know how the results from my watershed compare with other places in PEI. If you can see what different groups are doing because they’ve shared their data on DataStream, then it’s a lot easier to make connections and share information.