Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2015NY221B

Western New York Watershed Network

Institute: New York
Year Established: 2015 Start Date: 2015-05-01 End Date: 2016-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $20,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $44,097

Principal Investigators: Chris Lowry

Project Summary: The Western New York Watershed Network is designed as a flexible student and community based network focused on monitoring and analyzing hydrologic events. As an open source network, information regarding water quantity and quality will be publicly available, with many measurements reported in real-time. This network will act as a conduit to inform the community on current water conditions and stimulate discussion on the importance of protecting our water resources. Community outreach will come in the form of a project web page, social media outlets (Facebook and Twitter), collaboration with local organizations, and opportunities for citizens to contribute observations. This research network will train 10 undergraduate students on basic research methods in hydrology by addressing five research objectives. In addition, proposed data collection will leverage both traditional measurements collected by trained undergraduates and crowdsourced hydrologic measurement collected by citizen scientists.