New app developed by SU makes water quality testing easy – and free – Susquehanna University

October 16, 2024

Thanks to a unique application, testing the quality of your water is now easier and more affordable. The free, easy-to-use app called Turbidivision can measure the turbidity or turbidity of water from user-uploaded images.

The app was developed by recent Susquehanna graduate Ian Rudy ’24 under the direction of Matt Wilson, director of Susquehanna University’s Center for Environmental Education and Research.

“In areas ranging from environmental science to public health, assessing water quality is critical,” Wilson said. “These tests often begin with measuring turbidity, which can impact the clarity and drinkability of the water.”

Turbidity is estimated by the scattering of light by particles suspended in the water and is an optical measure of the water’s clarity, Wilson explained. In nature, many of these particles are disturbed sediments such as clays and soils or suspended organic matter, which largely depend on the land use in the area. Pollutants contained in industrial and agricultural runoff can also be associated with turbidity.

Wilson and Rudy, who earned double degrees in computer science and communications from Susquehanna, used a two-step process to apply. First, they trained an image classification model using photos and haze measurements. They then used a statistical method to estimate the degree of haze from these images.

To create a meaningful model, they collected images from both field sites and laboratory experiments under different water conditions and grouped them into 11 categories based on turbidity levels.

“Our classification model is very accurate: 100% of predictions are close to the true category and 84% are accurate,” Wilson said. “Current methods for determining turbidity can be costly and time-consuming. Our app could make it easier to analyze old image data and provide an easier way to assess haze, especially for education and citizen science projects where high accuracy is not always required.”

The application developed as part of this research project is the first publicly available photo-based turbidity meter. To make the model widely accessible, Wilson and Rudy implemented it as a free, easy-to-use web application. The app is compatible with a wide range of devices and has a simple interface so that anyone can easily benefit from the results of this research.

Wilson and Rudy wrote an article about their app development project that was just published in PeerJ magazine. The app is available online and on Google Play.