The hydrological picture of mountains is incomplete, when we lack data on intermittent streams. The number of such intermittent streams and temporary ponds are quite important. Keeping an eye on the world’s streams is a daunting task. If you added up the length of all the streams around the world, the total would be at least 89 million kilometers [Downing et al., 2012]. Even in regions with good hydrologic monitoring networks, it is unrealistic to monitor all streams with in-stream sensors. Crowdsourcing is a practical method to increase the accuracy of stream maps and expand understanding of when, where, and how streams flow.
Therefore, two new projects—CrowdWater and Stream Tracker—focus on crowdsourced hydrologic measurements, and both have recently launched free smartphone applications to facilitate data collection along stream networks.
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