Engaging the public for water data collection – experiences from the CrowdWater project

CrowdWater is a citizen science project in which we investigate how the public can be involved in the collection of hydrological data, such as stream water levels, soil moisture conditions and the presence of water in temporary streams. Another important part is to study the value of the collected data for hydrological forecasts. Therefore, we have evaluated the potential value of citizen science observations, which might be uncertain and spotty in time, in several studies. The project's long-term goal is to collect a large number of observations and thus improve the prediction of hydrological events, such as drought or flooding, by using data collected by the public in hydrological model calibration. In this presentation, we discuss our experiences from the CrowdWater project with regard to app-based data collection and evaluation of these data. We also highlight methods to ensure data quality, including a gamified approach and machine learning for the analyses of the photos that are submitted through the app. Additionally, we will give an update on new activities in the CrowdWater project.