Living Lab: Monitoring Water Pollution
Hi, this is us...
At the beginning of our Living Lab journey on monitoring water pollution, we spoke with many different stakeholders and experts who helped us shape and refine our project idea.
In this website, we share what we learned and how our ideas developed.
... CLEANWATERLAB .
Starting off with some context...
Surface water quality is suffering under the pressure of human-caused pollution. This does not only impacts nature and its biodiversity, but also us humans. Clean surface water is essential to provide access to non-contaminated waters for industry, agriculture and us humans. To meet these standards, the European Union introduced the Water Framework Directive (WFD).
According to this legislation, the Netherlands must ensure that all water bodies reach “good ecological and chemical status” by 2027. These statuses are assessed through surface water monitoring. The graphs below indicate the current water quality status of the Netherlands.
Source: European Commission. (2025). Third river basin management plans: State—Netherlands [Working document]. Retrieved November 3, 2025, from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/NL/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52025SC0032
Based on these, we can see that the Netherlands currently does not meet the WFD standards for any of its waters, and only 9 % of Dutch waters meet the WFD chemical status requirements.
First Interview Insights
In our first interviews with innovative monitoring start-ups and a representative of the water board Amstel, Gooi & Vecht, we learned that the water board currently conducts lab samples once a month at a fixed measurement location.
These measurements will then be used to estimate the water quality of the surrounding area, resulting in the generalised pollution data. This makes it difficult to detect dynamic spatial and temporal changes in water quality across the wider area.
To us, this highlighted the need for innovative monitoring methods that provide a higher spatial and temporal resolution. This allows data to
What innovative monitoring methods can be used to increase spatial and temporal resolution of surface water?
Innovative Monitoring Methods
Satellite Monitoring
In order to increase the spatial and temporal resolution of surface water quality monitoring, we decided to explore the use of optical satellite imagery to assess surface water quality.
Using Sentinel-2 satellite data, we calculated for each pixel the normalised difference turbidity index (NDTI) and the normalised difference chlorophyll index (NDCI) of the surface waters. These indices assess turbidity and algae growth of surfaces water. This method provides a large-scale analysis of these specific ecological water quality indicators.
However, satellite imagery cannot replace comprehensive assessments and is mainly useful for a quick overview to indetify NDCI and NDTI hotspots. A further limitation is that smaller waterways are not visible through optical satellite imagery, which excludes the applicability for smaller water bodies, such as the Amsterdam Canals.
Citizen Science
During our research journey, we spoke with citizen science project initiators, gaining insights into how citizen science can support surface water quality monitoring and also allow citizens to take ownership of water quality by actively participating in monitoring water quality. Additionally, we learned in our interviews, that citizen data collection can contribute to a wider spatial and temporal coverage.
In our case, citizens could support data collection through optical imagery of smaller water bodies that are not visible by the Sentinel-2 data.
Measuring surface water quality with phone imagery:
Sensor
Imagery from satellites and citizen science can only measure limited water quality indicators. Therefore, we decided to explore sensor-based measurements.
Through our expert interviews, we learned that sensors can provide data on various ecological water quality indicators such as pH, temperature, turbidity, chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, etc. However, they cannot identify the complete chemical composition of water bodies, nor detect new pollutants.
At the same time it is not feasible to increase the amount of lab samples, because lab analysis is time-consuming and current lab capacities are already exceeded. As a result, sensors can be a useful way to reduce pressure on laboratories and allow more frequent monitoring to increase temporal resolution.
Measuring surface water quality with a sensor:
Integrating it all into a Multi-Monitoring System
Our Multi-Monitoring System is designed to support the current surface water monitoring system. We see lab data as the base of surface water monitoring, as lab analysis has the most reliable and long-term data about water quality. At the same time, we believe by collecting data through satellite imagery, citizen science observations, and sensor measurements as complementary tools can be benefitial. These innovative methods help to increase the spatial and temporal resolution of the surface water quality data, allowing us to see changes across wider areas and in shorter timeframes than current sampling methods. By combining lab data with dynamic and real-time monitoring methods, the system creates a more complete and realistic picture of water quality.
Lab Analysis
Imagery
- time-consuming
- limited lab capacity
- high costs
- infrequent data collection
+ high data quality
+ can measure a wide range of indicators
Sensor
Citizen Science
+ resolution for smaller water bodies observation
+ engagement and education of citizens
Satellite
+ large spatial resolution
+ cost-effective
