In a virtual press conference Wednesday morning, Save the Sound unveiled a new tool that puts the ability to easily access and share data about the health of Long Island Sound and the rivers that flow to it into the hands of local environmental groups, government agencies, educators, and more.
QuickDrops is the first database of its kind designed to collect, manage, and broadly share water quality data specific to the Long Island Sound watershed. The platform will benefit the full community of stakeholders across the region:
- Community science groups will have a free, easy-to-use platform where they can upload the data they’re collecting—including historical data. Information added to QuickDrops can easily be uploaded to the EPA’s national Water Quality Exchange database.
- Researchers and educators will have access to data visualization tools that will help them analyze and more effectively communicate their understanding of water quality conditions in the open Sound, its tributaries, and the bays and harbors around its margins, as well as the impacts of pollution and climate change in our region.
- Health Departments and other water resource managers will be able to rely on more data to assist them in managing beaches and other water resources.
- More readily available data will empower elected officials to shape environmental policy and make well-informed decisions in protecting and restoring Long Island Sound for their communities.
“People who use data always benefit from access to more, higher-quality data. More data leads to a better understanding of the water quality challenges facing a waterbody, which in turn drives smarter solutions. As data continues to be added, QuickDrops will grow into an even more valuable tool for all types of users,” said Peter Linderoth, director of healthy waters and lands for Save the Sound.
At launch, QuickDrops featured data gathered from hundreds of monitoring locations around the Sound already entered by Save the Sound and other early users in New York and Connecticut. Data are available for a wide range of standard water quality parameters: physical (including temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen, which measures whether there’s enough oxygen in the water to sustain marine life), nutrients (such as the amount of nitrogen in the water), and microbiological (Enterococcus or E. Coli, fecal indicator bacteria which can determine whether a beach’s water is safe for swimming).
If your organization is interested in becoming a contributor, please email us at support@QuickDrops.org.
“We thank the Long Island Sound Funders Collaborative, New York Community Trust, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Long Island Regional Planning Council, and the Jeniam Foundation for their vision and support for QuickDrops,” said Linderoth. “We relied on expertise from our development partner, KISTERS, and our project partners—Dr. Sarah Crosby of The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, Dr. Jamie Vaudrey of the University of Connecticut, and John Dawes of The Commons in the Chesapeake Bay area—who made the development of this platform possible. We are grateful to all the environmental NGOs, government agencies, academics, and community scientists whose crucial feedback got us where we are today.”
More quotes from those who helped develop QuickDrops and those who are using it:
Tripp Killin, Executive Director, The Jeniam Foundation: “For the Long Island Sound Funders Collaborative, QuickDrops represents the best of what can happen in the non-profit sector: non-profits coming together to figure out how to help each other succeed, teaching funders about what is needed, and funders then coming together to fund a project that was bigger than any single funder could have done on their own. That’s why we’re so excited, happy, proud, and honored today. Our thanks go out to everyone involved in this multi-year effort.”
Martin Hain, digital projects manager, Save the Sound: “QuickDrops is the culmination of a concerted effort to help all water quality monitoring programs in our region share their data more effectively with others, as well as submit that data more easily to the national Water Quality Exchange database. As an added bonus and incentive to use QuickDrops, we’ve also provided data visualization tools that a lot of smaller, less well-funded groups may not have access to. With these tools, an organization can visualize, share, and post those visualizations to their own websites as well as create images for any reports they may need to produce.”
Katie O’Brien-Clayton, environmental analyst, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection: “As a state agency staff member responsible for conducting water quality assessments under Section 305(b) of the federal Clean Water Act, I have found QuickDrops to be an invaluable tool. It enables me to quickly and efficiently review and visualize quality-assured data collected by volunteers from across the state and Long Island Sound. This streamlined access to reliable data enhances our ability to make informed decisions and protect the health of our water resources.”
Susan Van Patten, Long Island Watershed Program Coordinator, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation: “The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has been highly supportive of the creation of QuickDrops, and we look forward to many of our local partners using it and putting data into the federal Water Quality Exchange database. Building a larger database of high-quality water-related information for areas in and around Long Island Sound will benefit partners at the local, state, and federal level. We commend Save the Sound for taking on this initiative and are looking forward to continuing to work with them.”
Dr. Sarah Crosby, director of conservation and policy, The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk: “Long Island Sound is the ecological and economic gem of our region. Thanks to QuickDrops, now we will be able to work more effectively and collaboratively on water quality than ever before. This tool changes the way local waterway data are shared, ensuring that the best available data can be available to both the public and to our decision makers. The development of this tool was done in close partnership with professional scientists, volunteers from local communities, and managers at the state and federal level to ensure it will meet the needs of our community. With QuickDrops, we are unlocking the potential of so much new data for Long Island Sound; this really is a game-changer for protecting the environment. I was excited to be part of its development and really look forward to using it.”
Dr. Jamie Vaudrey, associate research professor, University of Connecticut: “I am excited that this portal opens data collected by our community scientists to other scientists and managers, in addition to interested community members. QuickDrops provides a way to interact with that data online in a manner that is accessible to all.”