Crowdsourcing Coastal data with Low Cost IOT CTD / Hydrophone

This paper proposes development of a low cost combined hydrophone and CTD sensor, with wireless communication and software support to upload data to National Geographic’s FieldKit. This will enable citizen scientists to collect conductivity, temperature, depth, and ocean noise measurements on an adhoc basis while contributing to a single large data repository which will allow for deep analysis of data over a larger area than would be otherwise possible. There does not currently exist an online open platform for exchange of scientific and GIS data between citizen scientists and professional researches. The development of FieldKit into an open platform with both commercial and public support will benefit researchers and sensor providers by reducing re-implementation of frameworks and reducing data lost because there is not a good central platform for archival.