GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
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Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#2This is a brilliant presentation of data. It's straight forward to make out which parts of the country are at current risk of flooding. It's a shame there are aren't more sensors of river flow but what there is, is useful.
Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#3FWIW, the US Geological Survey has an API (plus their own interactives and reports) for river flow http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt
Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#4This is amazing! I've wanted to do some "citizen science" project in waterways around me. For instance, building cheap sensors that detect temperature/water level/salinity/particulates/etc that are so cheap as to be basically disposable.
The sensor itself could probably be made for less than $10 these days using various arduino modules, but I'm stuck on how to have the sensors communicate back to a "base station" to collect the information. Cellular-based would probably have great range but who wants to have a phone plan for each sensor! Zigbee may be an alternative, but it may require line of sight. Obviously it'd also have to be low power to work on a LiIon battery, or possibly have a solar panel to harvest power.
I believe the only way to make change is to show our impacts on our environment. And local government doesn't have the tech expertise, money or political willpower to suggest that "local business" may be destroying our health (when it's creating jobs!).
Anyone have any tech suggestions or organizations that do this sort of thing?
Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#5I made a similar map (though much less pretty) for the US a few years ago: http://whitewatermap.com
Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#6Excellent site and very timely - the UK is currently undergoing a series of serious flooding incidents, especially in the north of the country.
Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#7This is amazing! I've wanted to do some "citizen science" project in waterways around me. For instance, building cheap sensors that detect temperature/water level/salinity/particulates/etc that are so cheap as to be basically disposable. The sensor itself could probably be made for less than $10 these days using various arduino modules, but I'm stuck on how to have the sensors communicate back to a "base station" to…
There are cellular network providers that specialise in IoT applications, where you pay monthly per device and data transferred. This is the first one from a search for "IoT Cellular": http://www.aeris.com/technology/aerconnect/
Particle run their own, but by the looks of it you have to use their Electron hardware: https://www.particle.io/cellular
If you could get people to install an app on their phone, you could use Bluetooth LE to passively collect the data as they walk past. There's a few asset tracking solutions that use this approach, such as Tile: http://www.wired.com/2013/08/tile-a-better-way-to-find-your-...
Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#8Compare to the usgs site or this US army corps site:
http://riverstatus.usace.army.mil
Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#9This is amazing! I've wanted to do some "citizen science" project in waterways around me. For instance, building cheap sensors that detect temperature/water level/salinity/particulates/etc that are so cheap as to be basically disposable. The sensor itself could probably be made for less than $10 these days using various arduino modules, but I'm stuck on how to have the sensors communicate back to a "base station" to…
I'm looking at something similar at the moment, but in agricultural areas where line-of-sight is inhibited only by foliage and terrain. For my purpose, it's OK to collect an SD card every so often, but I've toyed with the idea of an ESP8266 and a directional antenna to e.g. a mobile broadband router, probably again with an antenna upgrade.
Earlier today, I found [1] which - amongst other things which you might be interested in - calls out a venture [2] to establish a network of 'citizen scientist' type flood sensors across the UK. Their scheme looks to be a network of radio-to-Internet gateways which support a number of independently-deployed sensor nodes.
[1] http://oomlout.co.uk/blogs/news/81763329-an-overview-of-ardu... [2] http://flood.network/
Re: GaugeMap: Thousands of river gauges, each with a Twitter account
#10This is amazing! I've wanted to do some "citizen science" project in waterways around me. For instance, building cheap sensors that detect temperature/water level/salinity/particulates/etc that are so cheap as to be basically disposable. The sensor itself could probably be made for less than $10 these days using various arduino modules, but I'm stuck on how to have the sensors communicate back to a "base station" to…
Oxford Flood Network
http://oxfloodnet.co.uk/
"Making a flood detection network in Oxford, using low cost sensors and volunteers"