H2NOW - Real-time monitoring of the Chicago River

The Chicago River is one of the worlds greatest metropolitan rivers, forming the aquatic backbone of the city itself at 251km long. The river is key to city life providing transport, recreation, commerce, biodiversity among a unique and proud architectural setting. As such, monitoring the quality of the water has never been more important for its service users.

Spear-headed by non-profit organisation Current, the H2Now project was launched with the aim of providing real-time TLF, e. coli and coliform monitoring at three locations along the river that could be broadcast to the public in an accessible manner.
Proteus Instruments was approached as the Proteus has the capability to measure these parameters with ease in an adaptable system that can be integrated into most types of telemetry systems. After a years initial testing, and some delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we are thrilled to announce that the H2Now website is live! There are 3 Proteus units in strategic places which take readings every 15 minutes which is then uploaded to the cloud server and displayed on the website.

Alaina Harkness, Director of Current (the leading non-profit behind H2NOW), commented that ‘H2NOW reports on the river, like a meteorologist reports on the weather, giving you information to help determine when the river is safe to use’. This project is bringing much greater awareness to the general public as to the pollution and importance of the rivers they rely on, and can often be accidentally taken for granted. You can view the latest data here and the video here.

Here at Proteus, we are thrilled to see the culmination of this project phase and the benefits of all the hard work that has gone into the project from all involved. We are excited to see the future directions of work for Current and H2NOW.

18th Nov 2021