Former NASA Engineer Designs App to Chart Water Quality

Former NASA Engineer Designs App to Chart Water Quality

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When environmental engineer John Feighery got a job testing well water in Bangladesh for the National Institutes of Health, he felt the work, which involved using heavy equipment, charting notes and locations by hand and transporting samples in incubators to a distant laboratory could be simpler and less expensive. That’s how he came up with the idea to use inexpensive testing equipment available online, and mWater – an Android app that records the data results of water quality tests and maps them. The application allows people to track water quality tests at any given water source over time, providing instant results which are put in context with other tests.

The app, which is available in the Google Play Store, also allows users to leave notes for other users about the appearance of the water, its scent, and how the water is flowing from the source, building up an archive of information over time. A photograph of the water source can be uploaded and location details are registered automatically using a GPS reading from the mobile device.