Boats are larger and more powerful today than they were in years past. This trend accelerated over the Covid-19 Pandemic. Today Minnesota has the highest level of per capita boat ownership in the nation. The good news is that more people are enjoying our lakes than ever before. The bad news is that with this increase in the capacity of boats and the increase in the number of boats, there has been an increase in issues, including impacts from large wakes on shoreline erosion and the impacts of more powerful prop thrust on lake beds. The Saint Anthony Falls Lab at the University of Minnesota began investigating boating impacts on lake ecology. This webinar covers the first phase that looked at wake energy and height, and introduces early data from the second phase of research which investigated prop thrust characteristics and energy.
