Using Mobile Phones to Measure Water Levels: CrowdHydrology

摘要

What's the water height? By asking this simple question we, as water managers and scientists, have an opportunity to collect hydrologic data and engage citizen scientists. While monitoring the water levels in streams and lakes is a basic measurement, we ironically lack these data in most watersheds. Crowdsourcing hydrologic data provides new opportunities to monitor these unmonitored watersheds. As a bonus, in many of these watersheds the general public has an innate interest in monitoring and protecting water resources, so all we have to do is ask for their help. These days, it is hard not to be run over by a person walking or driving while looking at their cell phone. This constant attention to our mobile devices, while at times annoying, presents an opportunity to develop real-time distributed observation networks. By harnessing the power of this mobile network, we have developed a system to collect water level measurements from citizen scientists.