The Frontline of Freshwater Research

IISD Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA) is the world’s whole-ecosystem living laboratory and the only one of its kind in the world, spanning 58 small lakes and their watersheds set aside for scientific research. For over 55 years, IISD-ELA has been a world leader in groundbreaking freshwater research and science.

When you give to IISD-ELA, you help researchers conduct experiments on whole ecosystems, yielding much more accurate and complete results than standard experiments conducted at small scales in laboratories.

The result of your donations: evidence-based methods to combat threats to fresh water and the knowledge to help rewrite environmental policy in Canada and around the globe.

Where Will Your Donations Go?

IISD Experimental Lakes Area’s success depends on an up-to-date research station and resources. Your generous donations will help find solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing our freshwater supplies.

IISD-ELA Campus Improvement Initiative

Donate to this fund, and you’ll be helping create a new home for freshwater science, Canada’s first Centre for Climate and Lake Learning. You’ll help researchers and scientists better conduct world-class research to empower solutions for freshwater health. You’ll be supporting the creation of a space for crucial collaborations with researchers from across the globe, helping to build lodging to house those important researchers and others, and improving IISD-ELA’s capacity to find evidence-based solutions.

You’ll be helping build a community and educational hub, complete with classroom and meeting spaces, where top-of-the-line educational programs can educate students and mold the next generation of freshwater champions. You’ll also be contributing to the construction of a state-of-the-art solar array to help power the research station with clean energy.

General Operating

Your generous gifts toward this fund have the power to do so much!

• Protect Data: IISD-ELA’s Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program is one of the longest-running and most comprehensive datasets in the world. This data set dates back over 55 years and is used on an ongoing basis by scientists around the world; its data are critical to understanding and identifying environmental changes in Canada and around the globe.

• Educate and Create Freshwater Community: Environmental education and relations programs provide crucial learning opportunities to youth, helping to create the next generation of freshwater champions.

• Support Crucial Freshwater Research: Your generosity supports studies on the effects of plastic in freshwater, how oil spills affect fresh water and how to clean them up, what prescription medications do to freshwater ecosystems once they reach them, how rubber tires from cars and trucks affect fresh water when chemicals they create leach into lakes and rivers, and more.