Inland regions of Spain, such as Aragon, encourage active tourism to boost the economy of the region. In this adventure tourism, rivers have great importance since many of the activities, such as canyoning, freediving, or rafting, carry out in areas of natural waters. In this way, monitoring water can indicate which areas are cleanest and safest for adventurers. Thus, the good health of the rivers has a direct impact on the local economy.
The Pyrenean Institute of Ecology of the CSIC (Higher Council for Scientific Research) has launched the citizen science project “Ríos Ciudadanos” (Citizen rivers) in Aragón, Spain. The main objective is to improve knowledge of the water quality of the rivers through open participation. Along these lines, citizen volunteers together with professional participation have created a complete map of the rivers health is being updated constantly.
THE CHALLENGE
Monitoring the quality of river’s water for the practice of adventure sports to boost the local tourism of Spanish inland regions.
THE SOLUTION
Libelium Plug & Sense! Smart Water Xtreme (coliforms) and Libelium Plug & Sense! Smart Water Ions (nitrates).
Project volunteers are using a very simple water quality assessment kit to detect pollution of agricultural and livestock origin (nitrates) and urban origin (coliforms). Contamination kits, delivered for free by the CSIC, consist of colorimetric strips and small containers for sampling. These strips, through color changes and colony counts, detect bacterial populations of fecal origin. The kit is very easy to use and quite intuitive hence the project is easily scalable.
For its part, Libelium provides its know-how on water quality gathered from its years of experience with water projects around the world. It also provides its technological devices for measuring water quality that allow the automation and implementation of alerts when water quality is not optimal. Thus, the research team have been receiving the records of the samples taken manually by the volunteers and will be able to compare them with the data professionally collected by the Libelium devices.
“It is important to raise awareness among citizens and the industry of the impact that productive activity and our daily life have on the water that we later consume,” says Libelium CEO, Alicia Asín. “After the experience we have been living through this pandemic, we must put technology at the service of people’s health.” She adds, “this involves automating the surveillance and control processes of sanitation networks to the maximum to optimize and detect potential infections through the development of an alert system”.
The Open Project
For its part, Libelium provides its know-how on water quality gathered from its years of experience with water projects around the world. It also provides its technological devices for measuring water quality that allow the automation and implementation of alerts when water quality is not optimal. Thus, the research team have been receiving the records of the samples taken manually by the volunteers and will be able to compare them with the data professionally collected by the Libelium devices.
“It is important to raise awareness among citizens and the industry of the impact that productive activity and our daily life have on the water that we later consume,” says Libelium CEO, Alicia Asín. “After the experience we have been living through this pandemic, we must put technology at the service of people’s health.” She adds, “this involves automating the surveillance and control processes of sanitation networks to the maximum to optimize and detect potential infections through the development of an alert system”.
MONITORING FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
Therefore, once the analysis has been carried out, the results are shared through the app “CitMapp” (Citizen Science Mapping Application), developed by the Zaragoza Collaborative Mapping / Geoinquietos group and the Ibercivis Foundation.
