CrowdWater

CrowdWater is a hydrological citizen science project of the University of Zurich. CrowdWater uses an app to collect data about water. No prior knowledge is required to participate.

What is the project about?

CrowdWater stands for independent and reliable data collection by anyone with an interest in water. The observations collected with the CrowdWater app can complement existing measurements and be used for hydrological modeling. The method is being developed in Zurich and will also be used in remote areas and regions with low data availability. 

How can interested citizen participate?

With the CrowdWater app for Android and iOS, participants can collect data on water levels (with physical and virtual staff gauges), soil moisture, the condition of temporary streams, plastic pollution and water body type independently and without measuring devices. New observation stations can be created anywhere in the world or additional observations can be added to an existing station.

In the CrowdWater online game, the data quality of the uploads in the category "virtual staff gauge" is checked and if needed improved by contributing citizen scientists.

What happens with the data?

The data are published anonymously on our homepage and can be used for free for own projects. In the research project, the data is used for hydrological modeling so that its potential can be investigated. Two PhDs have already been completed in the CrowdWater project, and two more PhDs are currently ongoing. Currently, the focus is on temporary streams and water quality observations. The publications that have come out of the project so far can be found here. What the current research team is working on can be read here.

Interactive map:

Citizen Science Seminar

In 2022, poject coordinator Jan Seibert held a lecture about Crowdwater as part of the lecture series "Citizen Science Seminar" at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU): "What we can all observe - Experiences from the CrowdWater Project" (in German). Here, you can watch the video recording of the lecture on our YouTube-channel: