Community Scientists

Want to share information about beaches, lakes and water you swim in and care about most?  As a community scientist, you can collect and share all sorts of valuable information with your fellow swimmers, water enthusiasts and scientists!

Data Collection Services

Water Temperatures

One of the most important factors when deciding if, when and where to swim is the water temperature.  However, accurate water temperatures can often be more difficult to come by than it should be.  You can help collect and share water temperature data easily using one of the following methods.

1. Post - Measure the water temperature with a thermometer, note the time and location and post it to our web form.  Your data will be used toward the median water temperature displayed on the site.
2. Smart Watch - Wear an equipped Garmin Smart Watch while you swim to measure the water temperature along the way.  When your swim activity is automatically uploaded to Garmin Connect, it can be shared with this site.  The swim activity and water temperature data will be processed and made available to others.  As an alternative, you can also manually upload individual Fit files exported from your Garmin Connect account.
3. Smart Buoy - Purchase or build a smart buoy and connect it to this website to share data it collects.

When water temperature data is shared, it will be shared with others in a few valuable ways:

• The latest collected water temperature will be shown to anyone that clicks on the location on the map.
• Past collected water temperature data will be displayed in a chart for reference.
• Data will be available from our open data API, which others can use for research or any other purpose.
• Eventually it will also be used to help produce water temperature forecasts.