Healthy Water Sources Identified With Space Station-Inspired mWater App

NASA

What if that clear, sparkling stream coming from the ground or a faucet were teeming with contaminants? How would you know? Whether you live in some remote region of Africa, a high rise in New York City or aboard an orbiting laboratory in space, you need reliable drinking water to survive. You now can check for yourself the cleanliness of your water using the mWater app on your mobile phone.

This handy tool, based in part on International Space Station technology, provides a global resource available for free download as an app or usable via the Web browser version of the app on most smartphones. Governments, health workers and the public all can make use of mWater to record and share water test results. During the first year of the beta release of mWater, more than 1,000 users downloaded it and mapped several thousand water sources.