Open-Source Mobile Weather Stations:Providing Information for a More Secure Water Future

David A. Wiberg, Water Futures Theme Leader

Yann Chemin, Soumya Balasubramanya, Lahiru Wijesinghe, Farah Ahmed, Mohamed Aheeyar

Launch Workshop

“Open-source mobile weather stations:

reducing flood damages and increasing the preparedness of communities”

IWMI, Sri Lanka,

3 May, 2016

IWMI’s vision - A water-secure world

IWMI’s mission - To provide evidence-based solutions to

sustainably manage water and land resources for food security, people’s livelihoods and the environment

Water Futures vision – A decision support toolkit that helps

planners, managers and stakeholders understand and assess possible futures and sets of solutions.

Mission - To identify contextually-appropriate pathways to achieving

sustainable water security.

Half our planet’s population are water insecure… uncertain futures

Absent or unreliable WSS Food security and Irrigation

The impacts of unmitigated variability including floods & droughts Degraded water environments

Photo: Pablo Tosco/Oxfam(Flickr CC)

Photo: Felix Antonio / IWMI

Photos: Neil Palmer / IWMI

Photo: Hamish John Appelby / IWMI

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1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050

Urban Population Share (%)

SSP1 (Asia)

SSP2 (Asia)

SSP3 (Asia)

SSP4 (Asia)

SSP5 (Asia)

SSP1

SSP2

SSP3

SSP4

SSP5

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1970 1990 2010 2030 2050

Income (GDP/cap)SSP1 (Asia)

SSP2 (Asia)

SSP3 (Asia)

SSP4 (Asia)

SSP5 (Asia)

SSP1 (ROW)

SSP2

SSP3

SSP4

SSP5

• Water use grows with income.

• GDP/capita rises everywhere, while GDP in China could start to decrease in the latter half of the century.

Photo: Neil Palmer / IWMI

Climate Change

Schewe et al. (2013)

Relative change in annual discharge at 2 °C compared with present day, under RCP8.5.

Increasing uncertaintyDecreasing knowledge

Median rainfall and standard deviation USA - SSA

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median rainfall %sta

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SSA

USA

Expensive

Not available in local market

Closed/Proprietary system

Manual recording/entering system

Solution is, go for open design

Available solutions…

Available non-local solutions…

Ex-

Mobile Weather Station Core…

EXCEL

Comma Separated

Values sheet

$80

$80$10

$10

Document costs of mobile stations

Price/Unit(USD) Unit Cost

F08079SerialLogChipOpenSourceDataLoggerModule* 9.50 1 9.50

JSTSHJumper6Wire(GPS)* 2.95 1 2.95

GPSreceiver* 39.95 1 39.95

Weathermeter[1] 76.95 1 76.95

WeatherShieldforArduino* 39.95 1 39.95

RJ11(x2),6pinconnectorforWeatherShield* 1.25 1 1.25

Arduinostackableheaderkit-R3* 1.50 1 1.50

8GbMemoryCard* 6.85 1 6.85

ArduinoMega-CircuitBoards* 8.22 1 8.22

5ASolarControllor* 9.59 1 9.59

SolarPanels* 27.39 1 27.39

MotorbikeBattery* 26.70 1 26.70

Parts* 20.54 1 20.54

Steelstandstructure* 47.93 1 47.93

GSMModule* 30.00 1 30.00

Total[2] 349.25 1 349.25

[1]TobereplacedeverythreeyearsinSL

[2]Entireweatherstationtobereplacedevery10years(recommended)

Equipment

MOBILE WEATHER STATIONS SUMMARY

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