Monitoring ecological change with smart phones and social media
We're creating a citizen network to monitor change at our stream restoration projects! It's simple: Put up a sign asking people to set their phone or camera in an angle bracket, take a photo, and post it to Twitter with a site-specific hashtag. Then we harvest the photos to create timelapse views that show change over time.
Using crowdsourced photos to monitor change at our stream restoration projects.
Active photo station projects
In fall 2017, we installed seven photo monitoring stations at three restoration projects on the Jordan River.
- 5 photo stations were installed at key locations along the river, from Arrowhead Park at 4800 S to approximately 5100 S in Murray.
- At Winchester Street (6500 S) in Murray.
- Across the trail from Jordan River Rotary Park at 12600 S in Draper.
By crowdsourcing these photos, we're getting trail users involved in the monitoring process. The bracket ensures a consistent height, angle, and direction for each photo. The end result: A photographic record of how riparian vegetation is filling in, or how reconstructed streambanks are holding up, or how new floodplains are handling high river flows.
Make your own!
Check out our inspiration: monitorchange.org and the Nerds for Nature instructable, which includes details on making the signs and getting timelapse slideshows up and running.