Long View on Recreational Impacts on Lakes

Abstract

Wisconsin lakes and rivers have been used for motorized recreation for over 100 years, but the nature of the technology has evolved and so too has our understanding of how recreational craft impact the health of a lake and the wellbeing of other lake users. This presentation will look back at the decades of research on motorboat impacts as well as the evolution of Wisconsin laws and local ordinances that regulate how and where people operate different types of motorboats. This historic context can be helpful when looking at today’s issues surrounding enhanced wake sports and the specialized crafts that people are using to participate in those activities, and the presentation will conclude with some thoughts on where we might be headed from both a regulatory and research perspective, including a new hot off the presses wake-boating suitability research paper authored by a recent UW-Madison PhD!