Abstract

Citizen science is a potentially useful approach to complement existing hydrological observation networks, and to obtain important data for water resources management. However, hydrological observations are usually based on the use of different kinds of measurement instruments.This seriously limits the options for citizen scientists to contribute with measurements at many different locations. In this paper, we present a novel, scalable approach where no physical installations are needed. We discuss how the value of different types of data, and especially such data that potentially can be collected in citizen science projects, can be evaluated. We present the CrowdWater App, a smartphone app that is used for the collection of information about water levels, soil moisture and the status of temporary streams. The approach is similar to geocaching, with the difference that instead of finding treasure-hunting sites, hydrological measurement sites can be created by anyone and at any location and these sites can be found by the creator or other citizen scientists to take additional measurements at another time. This approach makes use of a virtual staff gauge for water level measurements; this means that a picture of a staff gauge is digitally inserted into a photo of a stream bank or a bridge pillar, and the water level during a subsequent field visit to that site is compared to the staff gauge on the first picture. For soil moisture and the status of temporary streams, qualitative classes are used. The first results of the CrowdWater project showed that citizen science data could potentially be informative and that the collection of such data is possible thanks to the smartphone app.

Keywords

Citizen science; smartphone app; virtual staff gauge; data collection; value of data

Published in

Hydrologie Und Wasserbewirtschaftung
2019, Volume: 63, number: 2, pages: 74-84
Publisher: BUNDESANSTALT GEWASSERKUNDE-BFG

SLU Authors

• Seibert, Jan

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Zürich

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG6 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all


UKÄ Subject classification

Oceanography, Hydrology, Water Resources


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5675/HyWa_2019.2_1

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/99680