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ToolboxSatelliteHistorical Survey - Algal Blooms
A satellite chlorophyll-a image of an inland lake showing a green algal bloom concentrated in one arm of the lake
Satellite

Historical Survey - Algal Blooms

Twenty years of bloom history, without twenty years of monitoring.

What it answers

Are our blooms getting worse, or does it just feel that way?

$900In stock

Checkout arrives with the store connection. Orders attach to the lake on your account.

Product category
  • Physical ProductShips to you
  • ConsumableLab testing
  • ServiceBy the Lake Pulse Boathouse
  • CombinationKit with multiple items
  • Delivered digitally

    Available in delivered within 15 business days of ordering. contact the boathouse if you need a specific date range confirmed for coverage first.

  • Delivery

    Delivered to your Portal — no shipping, no waiting on a box.

  • If something's wrong

    Damaged, missing, or a result that looks off — tell us and we make it right.

Overview

Archived satellite imagery reconstructed into a bloom record for your lake — how harmful algal blooms have changed over time, when they start, how long they last, and whether they are getting worse.

Available in high-resolution and low-resolution formats, in three tiers.

This is the one measurement you cannot start collecting today. The satellite record already exists; the question is whether anyone has looked at it for your water.

Turnaround

Delivered within 15 business days of ordering. Contact the Boathouse if you need a specific date range confirmed for coverage first.

When to use it

What problem does this solve for our lake?

Every lake community has a shared memory of how the lake used to be, and it is unreliable in a specific direction: recent events are vivid and old ones are compressed. That makes "the blooms are getting worse" impossible to argue with and impossible to prove. Satellite archives settle it. Bloom extent, timing, and frequency reconstructed across two decades produces a trend line rather than a recollection — and that trend is what a grant reviewer, an agency, or a sceptical board member responds to. It also answers the question nobody can answer from field data: whether this year was genuinely unusual. Field monitoring starts when concern starts, which means the years before the concern are exactly the years you lack.

What's included?

  • Historical bloom reconstruction from archived satellite imagery
  • Bloom extent, timing, duration, and frequency over the covered period
  • Trend analysis across the record
  • Three tiers available, in high-resolution and low-resolution formats
  • Delivered as an interpreted report, not raw imagery
  • Results loaded into your lake's account

What's not included

  • Field sampling or laboratory chemistry. Satellite observation infers conditions from reflectance; it does not measure water.
  • Detection of anything below the surface. This is a surface-optical method.
  • Toxin measurement or species identification
  • Guaranteed coverage on any given date. Cloud cover and satellite revisit intervals decide what imagery exists.
  • Regulatory or compliance determinations

Requirements

  • Your lake's location and boundary
  • The time period you want covered, and the question behind it
  • Realistic expectations about cloud gaps. Some dates simply have no usable imagery, and no amount of processing recovers them.
  • A Plus, Lake Admin, or PRO subscription to have results loaded into your Lake Pulse account
  • Contact the Lake Pulse Boathouse if you have questions.
What you get back

Results

  • A documented bloom history for your lake, going back years before anyone was monitoring
  • Trend analysis showing whether frequency, extent, or duration are changing
  • Context for the current season — whether this year is unusual or ordinary
  • Evidence for grant applications and agency conversations that field data alone cannot provide
  • Results load into your lake's Data Library in the Lake Pulse Portal
  • Data can be charted in the Analytics Hub, used to trigger alerts, or shared with your board and members
  • Results are found in your lake's portal, accessible only to Plus, Lake Admin, and PRO subscription tiers

Pro tips

  • Buy the longest record you can afford. The value is in the trend, and short records produce noise.
  • Cloud gaps are normal. A summer with three usable images still tells you something; expecting continuous coverage does not.
  • Pair it with current monitoring. History explains the pattern; a buoy catches this year's event.
  • This is the strongest grant attachment in the satellite line. Documented worsening over two decades is precisely what restoration programmes fund.
  • Check against local memory. Where the record and the recollection disagree, the record is usually right — and that conversation is worth having with the board before the report circulates.

Lake Pulse sells measurement and monitoring — not treatment or remediation. What you buy here positions you to solve the problem, and to prove whether it worked.

Results sync to your Portal with Plus, Lake Admin & PRO

Results from this product land on your lake's timeline in the Portal — next to everything else your lake has ever measured, instead of in an inbox.

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Questions on this?

Our team can help you choose the right solution for your lake, explain how results sync to your Portal, or point you to the right subscription.

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