Low Cost Sensors for Real-time Continuous Water Quality Monitoring

EPA Region 4 and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division 

EPA Region 4 will be working with state partners and citizen scientists to build, deploy, and evaluate low cost water quality sensors that allow for continuous data collection of key water quality parameters.

Protecting water quality is a high priority for state environmental agencies. Monitoring of water bodies is traditionally accomplished by collecting discrete measurements of water quality parameters in the field, making it difficult to observe natural patterns and trends in rapidly changing systems. Technological advancements have made “real-time” continuous monitoring of water quality possible; however, most of these technologies are too expensive for widespread use. This project will involve working with citizen scientists to build low cost water quality sensors that allow for continuous data collection of key water quality parameters. Volunteer monitoring groups will deploy these sensors in a continuous monitoring network, and EPA will evaluate the sensors’ performance as compared to standard equipment. Project results will help demonstrate the usefulness of low-cost sensor technologies for assessing water quality. 

Project leads: Nathan Barlet (Barlet.nathan@Epa.gov) and Derek Little (Little.derek@epa.gov)