OpenWater - A citizen science monitoring platform

Ensuring the health of coastal marine ecosystems has emerged as one of the primary environmental concerns of this century. Frequent monitoring of water quality is required to establish baseline levels, allow identification of anomalies, and enable early detection of problems. Citizen science programs have been shown to be a highly effective method of monitoring water quality. Creare proposes to develop an open source water monitoring system that is both easy to use and inexpensive. In addition, our system incorporates a cloud-based data repository and a number of features that are designed to help ensure the integrity of the collected data. During Phase I we will develop and demonstrate a prototype version of the system to citizen scientists. During Phase II, we will deploy the system and support its use in a citizen-based water quality monitoring project. Hardware and software developed during the project will be placed in the public domain.