This database is designed to: a) Quickly alert you to recent reports of cyanobacteria blooms (HABs); b) Provide detailed information about each HAB reported since 2018 when the Cayuga Lake HABs Monitoring Program was launched, including its location, size, density, types of cyanobacteria it contained, and the concentration of microcystin, one of many toxins produced by cyanobacteria and the one found most often in New York; and c) Make it possible to analyze long-term patterns of HABs occurrences.

The reporting of bloom occurrences in this database is organized by geography and by areas of recreational interest, for example, parks and boat launches. Thus, Cayuga Lake is divided into 34 shoreline segments and four open water segments for a total of 38 segments used to track HABs spatially along the shore and in the open water of Cayuga Lake. Because they are based on points of interest as well as geographic features, HABs segments are of unequal size, ranging from less than a mile to several miles long. Shoreline segments are named according to the quadrant of the Cayuga Lake shoreline in which they are located (northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest). Open water segments are based on the four classifications determined by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) for Cayuga Lake: North End, Main Lake - Mid-North, Main Lake - Mid-South, and South End (Shelf).

To view recent reports of suspicious and confirmed blooms on Cayuga Lake, select a time interval for the map on the right. Up-to-date information about the bloom as well as the segment where it was reported can be obtained via links from the map and from the table below the map.

For an overview of HABs reports within an area of interest to you along the Cayuga Lake shoreline or in open water, select from the list of segments below the pie charts.