Project Summary


What we are planning to achieve:

To assess the most practical and useful method of delivery of river level information to the public who use flowing rivers for recreational purposes. Looking at the application of web cams (by using comparable immages on the World Wide Web and compare their effectiveness in relation to plotted telemetry data available. The main aim is to provide evidence of the preference of user groups (canoeists and anglers) as to which form of data they would prefer to view and what would be of the most use to them. Through this study we also aim to provide an understanding of the business implications of deploying web cams or telemetry data on the net.

Primarily we are looking at implementing the system in the south west of england to test its viability. It is hoped that a network of such systems will be developed throughout the UK so that users can check the condition of the river that they may want to visit. This may be useful for all river users including members of the fishing community, canoeists, naturalists and others.

It is the format of the information that we primarily want to determine. To run a succesfull scheme it is required that we carry out research in relation to what information would people find most useful.

Telemetric data is the format most widly used at present for the transferral of data to a target audience. It is possible to find out statistical data for river conditions throughout the UK. However how much use is this information?

It is in our opinion that visual data of the condition of rivers would be much more beneficial to the river user. Statistical data has its uses but real time visual snapshots of river condition would give the user a much better 'feel' of the rivers condition.

For those of you who want a little more information on telemetric data please refer to section 2.