(i) Sensors and instruments: Recent technological innovations in consumer electronics have drastically reduced the cost of sensors that can be used for environmental monitoring. However, most of these advances have not yet been applied to aquatic sciences, and aquatic scientists have been forced to rely on expensive instruments developed for use by scientists with access to large research and development budgets. This has limited our understanding of dynamic, geographically complex ecosystems such as the Ala Wai watershed, which in turn limits efforts to build resilience and sustainability into such environments. We propose: (a) establishing a pool of low-cost sensors and instrumentation based on small single-board computers, (b) providing engineering expertise for student-led development of field-deployable sensor systems, (c) establishing a
coordinated monitoring program across the Ala Wai watershed, and (d) developing a public web-based visualization and dissemination system that will display near-real-time sensor data.
A student-led water quality observation and sampling network at the University of Hawaii