03/31/2025
A great start for the Swan Lake Citizen Lab. On March 27th, York University researchers hosted Friends of Swan Lake Park for the launch of the Swan Lake Citizen Lab at York’s new Markham campus. Thank you to our hosts Dr. Ali Asgary, Dr. Satinder Brar and Dr. Maleknaz Nayebi and their talented team of experts.
Also, a special thank you to representatives from the Toronto Nature Stewards who outlined their successful program for managing invasive plant species in over 40 Toronto parks and to representatives from Ducks Unlimited and Saiwa for sharing their experience in using drone technology to track invasive plant species near Kingston Ontario.
The Citizen Lab is a pilot project that will apply three advanced technologies, drone imagery, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality Simulation to environmental monitoring of water and invasive plant species in Swan Lake Park. The invasive species project will focus on developing monitoring capability for identifying the 19 invasive species found in Swan Lake Park that Markham identified to be of concern in its 2024 Invasive Species Management Plan. The water quality monitoring program will demonstrate the power of drone technology for monitoring key water quality metrics as a basis for developing an eco-health card for Swan Lake.
One of the objectives is to develop a program that will be beneficial for monitoring environmentally sensitive areas throughout Markham.
The project leader, Dr. Ali Asgary, is the Director of CIFAL York, which is affiliated with the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR). One of CIFAL York’s long-term goals is do develop a program that can be replicated and structured into a format that can be adopted by other community-based environmental groups globally.
