Citizens Observatories for Water:Data & ToolsDr. Suvodeep Mazumdar @ovus00 s.mazumdar@sheffield.ac.ukDr. Vitaveska LanfranchiNeil IresonProf. Fabio Ciravegna

Department of Computer ScienceUniversity of Sheffield

The Water Problem

• Multiple issues: flooding, drought, pollution, …• Flooding is most recurrent natural disaster – over the

next 70 years• number of people affected each year rise to 0.5-0.8 million

• annual damages (increasing to €7.7-15 billion)• Conflicting interests on water-related decisions

• communities, environment, economic, political

• Traditional approaches to observing the water cycle • Density and resolution of collected data • Passive role for the community: citizens are consumers

WeSenseIt - Citizen Observatories of Water

• Creating an environment and methodology for creating a two way communication between decision makers and citizens• gather and share data and information (data capture)• provide interpretation of the evidence (analysis and sense making),

• identify, analyse and discuss solutions try to reach a consensual decision (decision making)

• provide multimodal services for citizens, 
communities and authorities

• respecting the different roles and information 
needs• UK / Netherlands / Italy

48 months, €5.4m funding,14 partners (2012-2016)Coordinator: University of Sheffield

Participatory Sensing Opportunistic Sensing

Remote and In-situ SensingPassive Sensing

Prediction/Visualisation

Sensing Hardware

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Acoustic rain monitor

Sensible heat flux

Video water flow estimationWifi/Bluetooth detection

Software Tools

Passive / Opportunistic / ParticipatorySensing Tools

ModellingTools

VisualisationTools

Tools and Applications for Open use

• Opportunistic Sensing• Pattern Matching tools

• https://github.com/neilireson (multiregexp & aho-corasick libraries)

• Modelling• Design of dynamic monitoring networks & Data assimilation

• Open scripts in Matlab and Python to be obtained by request – new users will require training to use (please contact us)

• Visualisation• Social Media Collection/Visualisation using D3.js deployed on Ruby on Rails

• Tutorial http://linkedscience.org/tutorials/visual-analytics-with-linked-open-data-and-social-media/

• Library - to be released soon

Sensor Data for Open Use

• WeSenseIt use of open data• Environmental sensors

• http://www.shoothill.com/environment-agency-liveapi/• http://www.arpa.veneto.it/upload_teolo/dati_xml/Ultime48ore.xml

• Other• OpenStreetMap, OrdnanceSurvey, MIDAS (academic use)

• Standardisation• WaterML (OGC) – O&M / GML

• WSI data available:• https://goo.gl/VM2KYw• http://geossregistries.info/geosspub/resource_search_ns.jsp

Accessing Data from GEOSS

Citizen Observatories for Water: Data & Tools

Questions?

Dr. Suvodeep Mazumdar @ovus00 s.mazumdar@sheffield.ac.ukDr. Stuart Wrigley Neil IresonProf. Fabio Ciravegna

Department of Computer ScienceUniversity of Sheffield