The Canada-U.S. State of the Strait Conference is a biennial forum with a 22-year history of assessing ecosystem status and providing advice to improve research, monitoring, and management of the Detroit River and western Lake Erie. The 2019 conference focused on assessing ecosystem health based on 61 indicators. Although there has been considerable improvement in the Detroit River since the 1960s, much additional cleanup is needed to restore ecosystem health. Western Lake Erie is now at risk of crossing several potential tipping points caused by the interactions of a variety of drivers and their stresses. This assessment identified eight environmental and natural resource challenges: climate change; population growth/transportation expansion/land use changes; chemicals of concern; human health/environmental justice; aquatic invasive species; habitat loss/degradation; nonpoint source pollution; and eutrophication/harmful algal blooms. Specific recommendations for addressing each challenge were also made. Climate change is the most pressing environmental challenge of our time and considered a “threat multiplier” whereby warmer, wetter, and more extreme climatic conditions amplify other threats such as poor air quality effects on vulnerable residents, species changes, and nonpoint source runoff and combined sewer overflow events that contribute to eutrophication and can manifest as harmful algal blooms. Our assessment found that investments in monitoring and evaluation are insufficient and that the region's intellectual and environmental capital is not being leveraged sufficiently to address current challenges. Continued investment in this transnational network is essential to support ecosystem-based management.

加拿大-美国海峡会议是一个两年一度的论坛，在评估生态系统状况和提供建议以改善底特律河和伊利湖西部的研究、监测和管理方面拥有 22 年的历史。2019 年会议的重点是基于 61 项指标评估生态系统健康。尽管自 1960 年代以来底特律河有了相当大的改善，但仍需要进行大量额外的清理工作以恢复生态系统的健康。由于各种驾驶员及其压力的相互作用，西伊利湖现在面临跨越几个潜在临界点的风险。该评估确定了八项环境和自然资源挑战：气候变化；人口增长/交通扩张/土地利用变化；关注的化学品；人类健康/环境正义；水生入侵物种；栖息地丧失/退化；面源污染；和富营养化/有害藻华。还提出了应对每项挑战的具体建议。气候变化是我们这个时代最紧迫的环境挑战，被认为是“威胁倍增器”，温暖、潮湿和更极端的气候条件会放大其他威胁，例如空气质量差对脆弱居民的影响、物种变化和非点源径流以及综合导致富营养化并可能表现为有害藻华的下水道溢流事件。我们的评估发现，对监测和评估的投资不足，而且该地区的智力和环境资本没有得到充分利用来应对当前的挑战。