This app was designed for use in South Carolina waters by Dylan Murphy, a masters of environmental studies graduate student at College of Charleston, SC, as part of his thesis, “Adoption of new Technology for the Improvement of a Citizen Science Project: Clean Marine Smartphone App.”
Dylan gave us the inside scoop on the new App
What does this app do?
The Clean Marine app is for reporting debris that is too large for you to pick up by yourself, such as an oil drum or an abandoned vessel. Simply install and tell the app what kind of debris you are looking at using my friendly and attractive user interface. Clean Marine will grab your gps coordinates and take a picture for you. All of this information is packaged and sent to SCDHEC to be added to a database of marine debris. This lets the governing bodies know the quantity and quality of debris in their region so they can better prioritize where funds are going.
If you are not currently connected to the internet when you spot the debris, your data will be saved and sent when your phone is back online. This app also allows you to manually enter information about a piece of marine debris if you have spotted something and gps’ed it when you didn’t have your cell on you.
Who is it designed for and who should use it?
While this was designed to go along with SCDHEC’s Clean Marine program (http://www.scdhec.gov/cleanmarine) and is aimed towards SC coastal residents, I encourage anyone who is on the water to use this application when they see large marine debris and I will make sure your data gets to the proper authorities for your region. In addition, this will let me know how I should progress with development and expansion of the app.
How do I get it?
Find this app in the Android Market from your Android phone, tablet or computer by clicking (http://market.android.com/details?id=mobsci.cleanmarine) or by searching for “clean marine” or “marine debris”. Also coming soon from the Amazon AppStore.
Acknowledgements
This app was made possible with the assistance of Amber Von Harten & Elizabeth Vernon Bell of the SC Sea Grant Consortium (http://www.scseagrant.org/), Lundie Spence of the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence: SouthEast (http://www.cosee-se.org/), Curtis Joyner of the SC Department of Health & Environmental Control: Ocean & Coastal Resource Management (http://www.scdhec.gov/environment/ocrm/), and Mary Conley of The Nature Conservancy (http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/southcarolina/index.htm)
We are excited to have a sister app to Marine Debris Tracker and think everyone should check out this app as well! Congrats on your thesis, Dylan and best of luck in your future endeavors!
-SEA-MDI
