This article was taken from the November 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
When cholera was identified in Haiti last October -- for the first time in 50 years -- there was no way of knowing which water supplies had been contaminated. The Water Canary (pictured) -- a low-cost, real-time water quality monitor -- could prevent the same thing happening again. "A year later, we have over half a million cases of cholera," says Sonaar Luthra, CEO and founder of Water Canary. "If we had been able to identify where cholera was -- and where it was not -- we had all the tools to contain the problem. It was just that missing piece of information."
The $100 (£60) Water Canary tests for contaminants in seconds by analysing light passing through water, rather than using chemicals.
The devices then transmit this GPS-tagged data across wired and wireless networks to create constantly updated maps of water quality. The hardware is open-source, to encourage adoption and development. "We're not reinventing science," says Luthra, a TEDGlobal fellow. "We're just reinventing who gets to use it, and the data collection process that we use to make decisions about water every day."
Luthra is testing the Water Canary in the microbiology lab of New York University and aims to have devices field-ready by the end of this year.
How the yellow box detects containments\1. The Water Canary uses spectral analysis to examine the water by light wavelength. \2. If there are too many contaminants present in the water sample, the device flashes red. \3. GPS data is sent via Wi-Fi or cable to create a crowdsourced map of water quality.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
