Low-cost, open-source sensors
We design OpenOBS, an open-source turbidity and depth logger that costs a fraction of a commercial instrument. Its low cost lets field campaigns deploy many sensors at once, including under river ice.
Field measurements of water quality are expensive, so they are sparse. OpenOBS is an open-source optical backscatter sensor that we developed to measure turbidity and water depth at a fraction of the cost of commercial instruments. Because the sensors are inexpensive, we can leave them under the ice on Alaskan rivers to monitor sediment continuously in conditions where a commercial instrument would be too costly to risk.
The designs, firmware, and software are open, and researchers, schools, and community science projects on several continents now use the sensors. Middle-school students in Alaska have built their own and deployed them in the frozen Tanana River.
Related publications
Observation of High Sediment Concentrations Entrained in Jumble River Ice
River Research and Applications
Connected Science Learning
Nature Water
Limnology and Oceanography: Methods