Open Water Project

= " aims to develop and curate a set of low-cost, open-source tools enabling communities to collect, interpret, and share their water quality data".

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Heather Craig:

"Over the last several months, Civic has been working on the Open Water Project, which aims to develop and curate a set of low-cost, open-source tools enabling communities to collect, interpret, and share their water quality data. Open Water is an initiative of Public Lab, a community that uses inexpensive DIY techniques to change how people see the world in environmental, social, and political terms (read more about Public Lab and the Open Water initiative here). The motivation behind Open Water derives partly from the fact that most water quality monitoring uses expensive, proprietary technology, limiting the accessibility of water quality data. Inexpensive, open-source approaches to water quality monitoring could enable groups ranging from watershed managers to homeowners to more easily collect and share water quality data.

As part of the Open Water Project, we’ve looked at other open-source water quality monitoring tools and initiatives (you can read more about those initiatives on this Public Lab research note, “What’s Going on In Water Monitoring”) and we’ve had meetups to talk about water quality and monitoring strategies (here’s a summary of an awesome water quality primer with Jeff Walker). We’ve also been working on development of the Riffle -- the “Remote, Independent, and Friendly Field Logger Electronics”. The Riffle is a low-cost, open-source hardware device that will measure some of the most common water quality parameters using a design that makes it possible for anyone to build, modify, and deploy water quality sensors in their own neighborhood. Specifically, the Riffle will measure conductivity, temperature, and depth, which can serve as indicators for potential pollutants. Eventually the Riffle will be able to fit in a plastic water bottle." (https://civic.mit.edu/blog/hhcraig/open-water-project-exploring-open-source-water-quality-monitoring)