{"id":30550,"date":"2018-10-23T10:59:02","date_gmt":"2018-10-23T14:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/?p=30550"},"modified":"2021-11-11T09:49:23","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T13:49:23","slug":"texting-buoys-helping-to-create-a-data-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/texting-buoys-helping-to-create-a-data-democracy.htm","title":{"rendered":"Texting Buoys Helping to Create a Data Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the summer, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.glos.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS)<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which is dedicated in part to sharing buoy data with the public, got a viral social media boost to their text-a-buoy system. The GLOS texting buoys provide information about water and weather on the Great Lakes for anglers, boaters, and anyone else who wants it, including live video feeds from some buoys. GLOS communications manager <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.regions.noaa.gov\/great-lakes\/index.php\/regional-team\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kristin Schrader<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> spoke to EM about why the texting buoys are getting their 15 minutes of fame now\u2014and the benefits these trusty texting sentinels of the lakes offer to humans.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Texting buoys<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis feature was designed by our contractor, LimnoTech, to provide a low-tech way for people to get info from the buoys,\u201d explains Schrader. \u201cEven though there is a lot more information available through<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/glbuoys.glos.us\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">glbuoys.glos.us<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, it didn&#8217;t exist in the mobile-optimized, phone-friendly format in which it resides today. So if you didn&#8217;t have a smartphone, or you found the data hard to look at on your mobile this was a good interim step.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The buoys have had texting capacity since about 2014, but they weren&#8217;t deployed specifically with this in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe texting was just a way to fill in for people who didn&#8217;t have browser access, nobody thought of it as a replacement,\u201d remarks Schrader. \u201cWe did have people using the service, though, since the beginning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30554\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30554\" class=\"size-large wp-image-30554\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_GLOS-data-portal-map-600x387.jpg\" alt=\"buoys\" width=\"600\" height=\"387\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_GLOS-data-portal-map-600x387.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_GLOS-data-portal-map-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_GLOS-data-portal-map-768x495.jpg 768w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_GLOS-data-portal-map-1536x991.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_GLOS-data-portal-map-2048x1321.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_GLOS-data-portal-map-940x606.jpg 940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30554\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">GLOS data portal map, Sun Oct 14. (Credit: Screenshot.)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the summer, thanks in part to social media, the buoys got an unusual amount of attention\u2014and that translated into thousands of texts instead of hundreds. The GLOS team was excited by the development and got an additional line for their busy buoys.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cRight now it is the novelty, but we are looking forward to seeing if there is a sustained rise in usage,\u201d details Schrader. \u201cWithout ongoing data there really isn&#8217;t a way to tell if this is a blip or an additional way that people will interact with the lakes. Citizens of the basin have real ownership of the resource, whether they live on the water or not. It&#8217;s possible that a meaningful number of people will continue to check in, just like they ping for weather or news updates.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The buoys can text information that has many applications, and can even save lives on the water. Researchers and local officials also use the buoy data to manage drinking water systems, identify potential risks to recreational users, and augment research data.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThese buoys are all environmental observation buoys,\u201d Schrader describes. \u201cThey capture data and share it in real and near real time. Depending on the buoy it can capture things like wind speed or wave height.<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/glbuoys.glos.us\/45024\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some have thermistors<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> beneath that give detailed temperature readings at several levels below the water.<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/habs.glos.us\/map\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Buoys in western Lake Erie<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> can capture information like chlorophyll or dissolved oxygen to help keep an eye on algal blooms and hypoxia.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30555\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30555\" class=\"size-large wp-image-30555\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoysdeploying-600x463.jpg\" alt=\"buoys\" width=\"600\" height=\"463\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoysdeploying-600x463.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoysdeploying-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoysdeploying-768x593.jpg 768w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoysdeploying-1536x1185.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoysdeploying-940x725.jpg 940w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoysdeploying.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30555\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Deploying the St. Joseph, Lake Michigan buoy, which monitors wind speed and direction, air and water temperature, relative humidity, and wave direction, height and period data. (Credit: Ed Verhamme\/Limnotech, https:\/\/www.limno.com\/environmental-data-buoys\/.)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Creating a data democracy<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although GLOS manages the buoy data, they don&#8217;t control the buoys, which are all owned by different entities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cA lot of people think that buoys are deployed by the government, and some are; the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.glerl.noaa.gov\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has quite a few buoys deployed,\u201d comments Schrader. \u201cBut they are not the only game by a long shot. There are buoys operated by research institutions, universities who need specific data to support their research, and there are also buoys deployed by private industry. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/glbuoys.glos.us\/45026\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Cook Nuclear Plant<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> shares data from its buoy, and water treatment facilities, for instance<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.clevelandwater.com\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cleveland Water<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, share theirs. GLOS doesn&#8217;t own any buoys at all; we are here to manage the data and make it easier to discover and use.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Right now, most Great Lakes buoys come out of the water in the winter. They just aren&#8217;t designed to deal with ice, and buoy operators take the downtime, which comes with the colder weather, to clean and repair the buoys, and to calibrate sensors. However, this causes an interruption in buoy data\u2014one that Schrader and others hope that cabling underwater buoys to the bottom of the lakes might eventually solve.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTaking the buoys out from time to time is important for maintenance, but ours leave the water in October and don&#8217;t usually go back in until May,\u201d states Schrader. \u201cThat is a lot of time that is &#8216;dark&#8217; as far as data goes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30556\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30556\" class=\"size-large wp-image-30556\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_lake-Michigan-600x398.jpg\" alt=\"buoys\" width=\"600\" height=\"398\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_lake-Michigan-600x398.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_lake-Michigan-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_lake-Michigan-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_lake-Michigan-1536x1020.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_lake-Michigan-940x624.jpg 940w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_lake-Michigan.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30556\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">The South Haven Lake Michigan buoy provides real-time weather and wave data for boaters, anglers, tourism businesses, weather forecasters, and others. (Credit: Ed Verhamme\/Limnotech, https:\/\/www.limno.com\/environmental-data-buoys\/.)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During those \u201cdark\u201d months, there are still boaters on the water, ships transporting cargo, and of course, wildlife. In short, it doesn&#8217;t make sense to Schrader that there aren&#8217;t year-round sensors helping us understand what happens in the Great Lakes when it is cold.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere is a system in Canada, in the northwest, called Neptune, and it is a good example of what we will eventually get to in the Great Lakes, I hope,\u201d adds Schrader. \u201cFiber optic cables lie on the lake floor and essentially wire the area to transmit information. You can attach sensors and cameras, and test things like oxygen, temperature and velocity, for instance. It would be fantastic to have that information constantly, and when the surface instruments are in it would amplify the data gathering even further. We use the lakes too heavily not to know what&#8217;s happening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Schrader, the many ways this buoy data is used is the most important part of this story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAll of this data, generated from so many places in pursuit of so many things, has everyday applications,\u201d emphasizes Schrader. \u201cPeople who run fishing charters use the thermistor info, people who go boating check the wave heights before they drive to the coast so they don&#8217;t waste their time and gas going to the boat when the water is too rough. Municipalities with waterfronts can look at information to help them assess improvements, and beach managers can look at conditions to decide whether or not swimming is safe.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30553\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30553\" class=\"size-large wp-image-30553\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_buoy-Cleveland-600x375.jpg\" alt=\"buoys\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_buoy-Cleveland-600x375.jpg 600w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_buoy-Cleveland-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_buoy-Cleveland-768x480.jpg 768w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_buoy-Cleveland-1536x960.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_buoy-Cleveland-2048x1280.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_buoy-Cleveland-940x588.jpg 940w, https:\/\/news.fondriest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_buoy-Cleveland-343x213.jpg 343w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30553\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Live image from buoy Cleveland Wind 45169 taken at 1410 EDT Sun Oct 14. (Credit: Screenshot)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, there are probably many potential applications for this data that aren&#8217;t being exploited yet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe have been participating in hackathons, like the one run by<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/clevelandwateralliance.org\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cleveland Water Alliance<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d says Schrader. \u201cPeople who participate in those are driving technology back towards the water. Coming up with new ways to gather data, less expensive tools and neat ways to visualize what we receive. It&#8217;s a symbiotic relationship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The combination of different data buoys monitoring various parameters while sharing the data for public access is creating what Schrader calls a \u201cdata democracy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cEveryone has access to this data: you, me, a third-grade classroom, the City of Chicago, and a homeowner near the Apostle Islands,\u201d states Schrader. \u201cYou might not have a fancy lab, but you can find and consume this data at your leisure, at no cost other than we&#8217;re a small government program serving it. So an applications developer can use this data to invent something that makes it more productive for a fisherman, whose kid uses data for the science fair, and then grows up to be in the Coast Guard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By making the buoy data available to everyone, all of the time, the GLOS helps puts all of those users on equal footing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe same quality data is served to everyone who wants to use it, and there&#8217;s no limit to what one can do with it,\u201d concludes Schrader. \u201cThe Great Lakes are big and complicated, and we work them so hard that there is a huge, diverse group of people who need data to make informed decisions, and with these buoys and the portals through which their data are consumed, we all get equal access to the tools.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #808080;\">Top image: The Cleveland Lake Erie buoy measures weather, waves, and water quality to support environmental studies, including a proposed offshore wind energy project. (Credit: Ed Verhamme\/Limnotech, https:\/\/www.limno.com\/environmental-data-buoys)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Great Lakes Observing System\u2019s texting buoys are making all kinds of data available via text to anyone who wants it, democratizing data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":30552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32,79,6,8,44,52],"tags":[1170,126,60,125,1169,181,403,109,74],"class_list":["post-30550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-articles","category-lakes-reservoirs","category-monitoring-gear-2","category-monitoring_tech-htm","category-newsfeed","category-oceans-coasts","category-technology","tag-cleveland-water","tag-data-buoy","tag-featured","tag-great-lakes","tag-great-lakes-observing-system-glos","tag-lake-erie","tag-limnotech","tag-news-ticker","tag-noaa"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Texting Buoys Helping to Create a Data Democracy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Great Lakes Observing System\u2019s texting buoys are making all kinds of data available via text to anyone who wants it, democratizing data.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/texting-buoys-helping-to-create-a-data-democracy.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Texting Buoys Helping to Create a Data Democracy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Great Lakes Observing System\u2019s texting buoys are making all kinds of data available via text to anyone who wants it, democratizing data.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/texting-buoys-helping-to-create-a-data-democracy.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Environmental Monitor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-23T14:59:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-11T13:49:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/texting_buoys_cleveland_LAKEerie.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1909\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Karla Lant\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Karla Lant\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.fondriest.com\\\/news\\\/texting-buoys-helping-to-create-a-data-democracy.htm#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.fondriest.com\\\/news\\\/texting-buoys-helping-to-create-a-data-democracy.htm\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Karla Lant\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.fondriest.com\\\/news\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/51170f7bfa3a05b94cea6f517ce4e79b\"},\"headline\":\"Texting Buoys Helping to Create a Data Democracy\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-23T14:59:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-11T13:49:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.fondriest.com\\\/news\\\/texting-buoys-helping-to-create-a-data-democracy.htm\"},\"wordCount\":1415,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.fondriest.com\\\/news\\\/texting-buoys-helping-to-create-a-data-democracy.htm#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.fondriest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/10\\\/texting_buoys_cleveland_LAKEerie.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Cleveland Water\",\"data buoy\",\"featured\",\"Great Lakes\",\"Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS)\",\"Lake Erie\",\"LimnoTech\",\"news ticker\",\"NOAA\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Featured Articles\",\"Lakes &amp; 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