Aquatic Informatics has awarded the latest Ripple Effect grant to Stroud Water Research Centre. Ripple Effect is a software and service donation programme that will enable the Stroud Centre to acquire, process, and model data using Aquarius software, and share insights with stakeholders to advance knowledge and stewardship of freshwater systems.
“Stroud Water Research Centre is excited to apply the newest features of the Aquarius platform to our data management and analysis. As a recipient of the Ripple Effect grant, we are grateful for the assistance Aquatic Informatics is providing to help us develop more efficient data quality control and curation processes. This added efficiency accelerates our translation of data into discoveries that advance the science of fresh water,” said Dr. Scott Ensign, vice-president of the Stroud Centre.
Ripple Effect was created for communities and organisations around the world. Each grant call has a theme so that a variety of organisations and communities can benefit from the different solutions that Aquatic Informatics has to offer in protecting life with timely water information. This year, the committee has selected an Aquarius customer who might have discontinued using Aquarius for their work had they not receive the Ripple Effect grant.
A decade-long user of Aquarius, the Stroud Centre has been leading the effort to produce innovative solutions for preserving and restoring freshwater through global research, education, and science-driven watershed restoration. The Stroud Centre has conducted landmark studies on freshwater that have produced foundational concepts such as the Thermal Equilibrium Concept and the River Continuum Concept.
The Stroud Centre collects a myriad of data for multiple projects with multiple partners at any point in time. The non-profit sought out Aquarius as a data management solution nearly 10 years ago, but the volume of data began expanding rapidly with the advent of a sensor-based citizen science programme in 2017. They now use Aquarius for all their time series, with the software providing additional value outside of data storage, as its database structure allows for centralising metadata collection, creating and applying rating curves for discharge or sediment time series, and allowing for tracking of quality control efforts and other data-manipulation efforts.
