Equipping people to be citizen scientists

developing water quality monitoring sensors

Abstract

The quality of a community’s water supply is an important factor for determining the health of individuals and the community as a whole. An important way of equipping local citizens to take control of their local water supplies is to provide tools that allow them to monitor key parameters that can be used to assess water quality. We have developed a low cost set of water sensors that can be operated using a smart device and be built by citizen scientists around the world to perform water quality measurements. This water sensor currently tests the pH, temperature, and turbidity of a given water sample and can be set up for single tests as well as longer term monitoring. This project is part of a larger effort in collaboration with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and funded by the European Union to equip global citizens to monitor their chemical environment.

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