Smartphone-Based Chemical and Microbiological Analyses for Citizen Science Applications in the Water Sector

The scientific added value of engaging citizens to acquire data is the increased spatial
coverage and temporal frequency of data that can be achieved. Successful citizen sciencebased
monitoring campaigns have been demonstrated, e.g. numerous initiatives of natural
biodiversity monitoring (resulting in subsequent policy making), as well as air quality
monitoring and environmental algae bloom monitoring [1-3]. Other initiatives have been
started to generate systems yielding distributed information using simple measurement
equipment such as the CITCLOPS project aiming for seawater quality monitoring [4]. Citizen
science projects will be most successful when they have a low threshold for citizens to join
and perform measurements and that information that is generated by the citizens is of
substantial interest for these citizens as well [5]. The possibility to connect these goals is
closely related to the availability of (easy) measurement equipment at the disposal of
citizens.