Enhancing Hydrological Data Collection Network, Inspiring Research and Appreciation of the Value of Water in Low Income Countries through School Education

Abstract:

Although there are about 2100 rain gauges all over India only monthly rainfall data are made available to the public due to various reasons. Poor data collection network and difficulty to access the data, lack of motivation and dedication on the part of the data collection and monitoring agencies and lack of appreciation of the cost of water by the general public were identified to be key barriers to effective management of water in a low income country like India through the literature review and interview with twenty-four key stakeholder institutions that deals directly or indirectly with water in India.

One of the solutions to this challenge could be to crowdsource the collection of rainfall, humidity and temperature data to at least one school each in every district of the about 675 districts in the country. The data could be uploaded to a single website either through text messages or internet under the supervision of a school teacher on a daily basis. The data collected could be accessed by researchers and decision makers in cases of emergencies like floods and droughts.

Besides improving the data collection and quick dissemination of data this could motivate school children to value their laboratory practices as they can see the immediate benefits of their sincere laboratory works and at the same time motivate the larger community to value water and the impact of quality data. The same could be applied for prevention of water quality related epidemics if water quality data and healthcare data can be simultaneously collected and correlated.