This will lead to better decisions and will presumably make managers advocates for science. The need for research partnerships. However, these partnerships must often be international in order to deal with the lakes and connecting channels. Barriers to these collaborative efforts must be removed, including access to baseline data which are critical for sound research. Issues associated with long range transport of air pollutants have not been addressed adequately in research to date.
RAPs depend on science for sound decision making.
However, not all RAPs have sources of technical device and some RAPs, such as the Detroit River RAP do not use science as the primary rationale for decisions. This not only hurts the credibility of the plan itself, but ultimately, is detrimental to the viability of the research community whose advice and research is not used. A general thread that emerged from the Public Meeting is that the Council should continue to champion adequate research, monitoring and assessment in order to achieve the spirit and intent of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Research, monitoring and assessment provide the foundation for both understanding how ecosystems function and how to manage the human component of interaction with the ecosystem.