Catawba Riverkeeper launches new water quality app with Shiny Creek
(Charlotte, N.C.) The Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation has released its Water Watcher app, now available for free in both the Apple and Google Play stores.
Focusing on exploring and protecting the waters of the Catawba-Wateree River basin, this first version of the app has eight tools: pollution reporter; trash logger; basin explorer map; Catawba Riverkeeper website; enforcement authority contact information; Catawba Riverkeeper social media; lake levels; and dam release and flow arrival times.
“We have a unique asset in our vast network of trained volunteers and concerned citizens, the majority of whom now have smartphones. The Water Watcher app helps people explore and fall in love with this river as well as make it easier and more efficient to get pollution documented and reported,” said Catawba Riverkeeper Sam Perkins. “This app ensures that we receive critical information, such as location details, while making it convenient for the user to submit the report and for us to handle it.”
The pollution and trash forms automatically log GPS coordinates and include pictures and information entered by the user. They populate a management system that better enables the Catawba Riverkeeper’s full-time staff and volunteer network to better organize and address pollution, including trash for future cleanups. The basin explorer map has a list of layers that can be turned on and off, including recreation access points, pollution discharges, creeks, sub-basins, political boundaries and more. These reporting and mapping systems utilize ESRI’s GIS technology.
“Especially with reference information, like recreation access points and lake levels, this is an app that can be enjoyed by boaters, kayakers, and citizens interested in protecting our waterways whether they are on our river and its lakes or inland around the creeks that feed the main stem.”
The app has been in the works with web and mobile development firm Shiny Creek in Asheville. “We believe that mobile apps can help nonprofits, not just with fundraising and organizing their members, but with directly achieving their core mission,” said Shiny Creek President Brett Crossley. “That’s our goal, too, and we think more nonprofits will take advantage of this approach to technology.”
Perkins added, “We are extremely grateful for the professional time and effort Shiny Creek’s staff poured into this project. It will have an immediate and direct impact helping us to clean our waterways.”
The app can be found as “Catawba Riverkeeper Water Watcher” on the Google Play Store and “Catawba Water Watcher” on the Apple Store. Additional details on the app, including instructions, can be found at www.catawbariverkeeper.org/app as well as on social media.
Shiny Creek is a team of professional developers with decades of combined experience designing and building large-scale, enterprise-class, web-based and mobile applications. Shiny Creek helps companies build success stories where that story is told with a great software application.
The Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation is a membership-supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit in its 20th year protecting the 5,000 square miles of the Catawba River basin for all who enjoy and depend on it.
republished from catawbariverkeeper.org.