2020 End of Year Update from SmartPhones4Water (Q4 2020)!
SmartPhones4Water (S4W) was created out of a passion for people, water, and restoration. We mobilize young researchers, citizen scientists, and mobile technology to enrich lives by improving our understanding and management of water. Thanks for taking an interest in our work! Even amidst a global pandemic, we've been able to accomplish some exciting things this year. Keep scrolling to find out what we've been up to since the last newsletter and what we've got planned for next year :)
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Global Rainfall Story Announcement!
SmartPhones4Water (S4W) is excited to announce a 100-day Global Rainfall Story (GloRaS) campaign. Starting on 1 January 2021, we are calling people from every walk of life to tell their rainfall stories by:
Stay tuned for more information about this exciting campaign!
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An Update from Nepal in Asia!
There are a lot of great things to report from Nepal! We're continuing a number of citizen science efforts and expanding work into exciting new areas as well! For those interested, you can keep up-to-date on the latest from S4W-Nepal through their Facebook page.
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Save the tiger! Save the grasslands! Save the water! S4W-Nepal is proud to announce that they are part of a team that just received funding from the Dutch Research Council for a project seeking to better understand and manage the landscape and water systems supporting the less than 4,000 tigers still remaining in the wild. More to come! (Right Image Source: National Geographic).
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We are also currently recruiting citizen scientists to help measure water levels in the Hanumante River in Bhaktapur (more here) and were part of a recently published study in the journal Water that reconstructs historical water levels in the Hanumante River using return level analysis (the paper is available online here)! You can also read about recent groundwater level monitoring efforts in the Kathmandu Valley here. Finally, S4W-Nepal is currently preparing year-end reports and planning for what's to come in 2021.
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An Update from Ghana in West Africa!
The goal of the Schools and Satellites (SaS) project in Ghana is to better understand precipitation patterns (mission critical for good stewardship of water resources). This is done through a combination of satellite and on-the-ground measurements. S4W is a partner in the project, with the project using our platform for on-the-ground measurements of precipitation.
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Our participating schools and citizen scientists have been collecting on-the-ground data for most of this year with a good distribution of measurement locations across the country. We are excited to announce that the project has been renewed for another year, allowing data collection to continue :)
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An Update from Delft in the Netherlands!
The Delft Measures Rain project this past summer was a great success! Its goal was to engage citizen scientists to measure the timing, frequency, and variability of precipitation across the city of Delft for a two month period. Due to COVID concerns, the entire project was run and managed remotely through social media. Over 100 participants collected data for the study, and a few of them have continued recording measurements after the end of the two month period! We feel this project shows campaigns like this have the potential to be run and managed remotely, and that they are just as relevant and important in places like Delft as they are in the most remote corners of the world.
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An Update from California in the USA!
This past summer, we initiated a study evaluating stream-aquifer interactions along Big Chico Creek in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. It's produced some interesting results and is currently ongoing. In partnership with local government and CSU Chico, we had the chance to present our preliminary results in a presentation to the Groundwater Resources Association of California in November. There has been some interest in replicating this work in other parts of the state, and we hope these data prove to be valuable for water managers and decision makers in California. We also have students at CSU Chico and other citizen scientists monitoring precipitation as you read this!
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Announcing Two New S4W Projects!
We've identified local partners and established projects in two new locations! More news on these projects in the coming months, but here's a little teaser :)
First off, precipitation data collection is just beginning in Afghanistan! In the coming months, we will be recruiting and training citizen scientists to monitor precipitation in a specific watershed within the country selected for this first pilot project!
We are also excited to announce an upcoming project in the Near East! We're partnering with Delft University of Technology and local officials to recruit citizen scientists to collect water resource data to improve water accounting for a mountain aquifer system.
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Featured on River Collective!
S4W and our work in Nepal was recently featured on one of River Collective's Science Chats! You can find out more and watch the episode here, which also features some other neat water-related citizen science work from around the world you can check out and support!
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Doing Any End of Year Charitable Giving? Please Consider Us!
We've been encouraged by the growth we've seen in our work this past year (especially considering the circumstances and numerous obstacles to safely continuing work with COVID-19), and we are excited about upcoming opportunities and what the future holds. If you're planning any charitable giving before the end of this year, we hope you'll consider us! You can donate a small amount (<$100 US) to support our efforts here, or if you'd like to give more, please reach out to us to facilitate your donation so we can utilize your entire donation for our work (Gofundme Charity takes a small cut for their operations). California staff donate their time to S4W, so your entire donation will support work in other locations across the world! :)
Finally, we are on social media (S4W on Facebook and Twitter, and S4W-Nepal on Facebook and Instagram), and we would love your support! We only post occasionally and promise not to overwhelm you ;)
We also have a number of educational and training videos available on YouTube.
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Looking for More? Here's Some Stories!
Every so often, someone writes a story about our work. We also publish interviews with citizen scientists and other stories about what we're doing through our website from time to time. You can find the full list of them at the link below :)
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If you've gotten this far, congratulations! You're almost finished! We appreciate you prioritizing and opening this email (we know you get so many!) and reading about everything we've been up to and have planned. We plan to be back in your inbox again with another newsletter in about three months or so and will post occasional updates via social media in the meantime. Please reach out if you have any questions about our work, interest in participating or supporting us, or if you know any good citizen science jokes!
Speaking of jokes, do you know how many jokes we've included at the end of our newsletters now? Also speaking of jokes, why don't lobsters share? Here's a hint.
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