Identifying Hydrological Fluxes and Processes within the Sondu Basin, Kenya Using Automatic Measuring Stations and Crowdsourced Data

Monday, 6 June 2016
Björn Weeser1,2, Suzanne Robin Jacobs3,4, Lutz Breuer1,2, Klaus Butterbach-Bahl4,5 and Mariana Rufino3, (1)Centre for International Development and Environmental Research, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany, (2)Institute for Landscape Ecology and Resources Management (ILR), Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany, (3)Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia, (4)Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, (5)International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya
Abstract:
Ongoing changes in land use and climate affect the function of important headwater catchments like the Mau Forest, Kenya. However, scientific evidence about the impacts of these changes on hydrological processes is still lacking. We therefore investigate hydrochemical processes and fluxes in a nested set up with sub-catchments of various land uses (natural forest, smallholder agriculture, tea and tree plantations, 27-36 km²) and the major outlet (1023 km2). Automated systems monitor 10-min data of discharge, turbidity, nitrate, total and dissolved organic carbon, electrical conductivity as well as climate data at three, and precipitation data at six locations since October 2014. In addition, we started collecting precipitation, throughfall, soil and stream water to analyse their isotopic composition and calculate mean transit times.

Furthermore, we upgraded and extended the local water level gauging network in the whole Sondu basin (3470 km2) to improve our understanding of the large-scale flow-processes. For the data collection we are testing a citizen science approach, where water levels are read and transmitted by locals using their cellphones and simple text messages. The short message service is easy to use and an established way of communication in East Africa. This simplicity offers a broad access for interested citizens in water monitoring all over the catchment. To ensure a fast and reliable recording of the data we developed a low-cost server based on a Raspberry Pi receiving and quality checking the data before storing it in a public available database. This database provides a standardized access to the data for postprocessing and data visualization, for which a web based frontend is foreseen. However, the key element of this approach is the active involvement of citizens, which can be a challenge in rural areas. In addition to the simple monitoring, we plan to investigate the applicability of this approach in a developing county and the precision of the transmitted water levels in comparison to our automated systems.

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