First WMO HydroHub Innovation Call

For the First WMO HydroHub Innovation Call we have received 15 applications from 8 countries. The topics proposed by applicants were diverse and targeted over 12 countries. All proposals were thoroughly evaluated by our internal and external experts, and Northern Widget LLC, a corporation organized under the laws of Minnesota (United States of America) was awarded a contract to implement its project. The topic of the selected proposal was "Inexpensive open-source data loggers and sensors for water-level and hydrologic measurements in least-developed countries". 

The project built upon the corporation's years of open-source instrumentation development for field scientists to deliver operational hydrological monitoring stations and the capabilities to build and maintain them to our partners in Afghanistan and Bhutan, to expand their use globally.

The Project (implemented in Bhutan)

Margay – a modern, lightweight and extremely-low-power open-source data logger and its associated firmware library – has been linked to ultrasonic rangefinders, soil-moisture sensors, tipping-bucket rain gauges, a pressure/temperature/relative humidity sensor and other hydrometeorological sensors. The technology proposed in this project was developed as an upgrade to the Margay Data Logger. It offers optional telemetry for real-time monitoring, which can be critical for water management decision-makers and hazard notification systems. It permits remote access to data, which is cost-effective, and mitigates human safety concerns for deployments in hard-to-reach remote locations.