HydroCrowd: Citizen Science App Release

The Citizen Science App for measuring rainfall and weather from HydroCrowd has only recently been released. HydroCrowd is a research project of the Justus Liebig University Giessen. The project explores the potential of participatory monitoring in selected mountainous regions in Ecuador, Honduras and Tanzania to increase the availability of hydroclimatic data for sustainable water management.

In this blog, we would like to briefly introduce the App and show how Citizen Scientists collect data on precipitation, water levels, weather, and temperature.

Measuring Rainfall with Citizen Science

Volunteers participate by reporting measurements with easy-to-use instruments at weather and water stations installed in the project areas. These measurements include precipitation, air temperature, and humidity, as well as water levels and turbidity of rivers and streams. To assess the quality of the data, the data are compared with automatic reference measurements at selected sites. These are then systematically examined and tested for their suitability for modeling.

The App allows for easy submission of data by volunteers and provides guidance on data collection. In addition to reporting measurements from the HydroCrowd stations, volunteers also have the opportunity to create spots to record their own rainfall data, and to report weather events using 'photo notes'.

More information about this project can be found here: