CANANDAIGUA, NY — Scientists and volunteers working to solve the mystery of how, why, and when harmful algal blooms form on Canandaigua Lake are looking to the sky for help.

Bahram Salehi, associate professor of remote sensing engineering at SUNY College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry, and doctoral candidate Sina Jarahizadeh were able to secure the use of an airplane recently as part of the ROCX data collection campaign at Rochester Institute of Technology.

As it flew over Canandaigua Lake on a recent picture-perfect day, the plane from Defence Research and Development Canada carried a hyperspectral sensor from a company in Norway called HySpex, enabling the collection of data such as turbidity, or water clarity, and the presence of chlorophyll A, which is an indicator of an alga

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