You have a data archive for maps. You are planning to have a data archive for water quality. For your water quality database:
--The goal is to reliably monitor water conditions in real-time, and provide remote access to that data.
--Pilot projects included communities in West Virginia and Colombia who deployed conductivity and temperature sensors in river networks, and monitored the live data through remote access.
You now have: A sensor-plus-datalogger enclosure system A low-cost Public Lab datalogger for data storage Alpha-version remote data access systems through cellular and wireless networks. Water sensors for information on some aspects of drinking water quality.
What about: Surface Water? Groundwater? Estuaries and Swamps? Precipitation?
Will Public Lab collected data be maintained for ten years? If so, will you create a metadata standard that combines the sensor and datalogger input from topographical maps, projection maps, air flows (weather maps), and water flows?
Or is there such a combined metadata standard already in existence? If so, what is it called? And can I find it online?
My hope is to have anyone with a cell phone be able to:
Stand next to a waste deposit on dry land
Point their phone at the heap
Take a photo of the heap
Post the photo to the website
With a GPS readout of:
A) The elevation above sea level of the base of the heap;
B) The distance from the base of the heap to the nearest water shed feature (lake, creek, river, swamp, aquifer inlet surface)
C) The distance from the base of the heap to the nearest drinking water source (well, reservoir)
How and by whom will water and waste data be curated? Because different companies of cell phones have different levels of precision, incompatible mapping algorithms and methods of triangulation, not all of which include elevation. Radio interference can also distort or damage signals. Dataloggers can also introduce human error into data stores.
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Will the same hold true for sensor data and datalogger input? If so, the data can be corrupted by deliberate interference.
Who owns the data contributed by a stand-alone community project to the common pool of data? The community? Public Lab members? All citizens? The whole world?