• A new mobile phone app developed by a Charles Sturt University researcher and colleagues provides river level data sourced from WaterNSW for up to 50 kilometres in any direction from their NSW location
• The new ‘RiversNearMe’ app is freely available to anyone seeking information about NSW river levels in their vicinity
• While primarily designed for farmers, the RiversNearMe app is available to anyone who has an interest in rivers – campers, fishers, canoers and kayakers

A Charles Sturt University researcher has developed a mobile phone app that provides information about NSW river levels in a 50-kilometre radius from the user.

The ‘ RiversNearMe’ app was developed by Dr Darren Yates, a postdoctoral research scientist in the Charles Sturt School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering and in the Charles Sturt Gulbali Institute of Agriculture, Water and Environment.

The ‘ RiversNearMe’ is a web-based app for phones that provides river level data sourced from WaterNSW for up to 50 kilometres in any direction from your NSW location  by tapping on a map.

“RiversNearMe is a quick and easy way for anyone to monitor recent river-levels and river flow-rates for up to 50 kilometres in any direction of a desired location within New South Wales,” Dr Yates said.

“Just point your phone web browser to ‘riversnearme.csu.edu.au’, click on a map location in New South Wales and RiversNearMe does the rest.”

Dr Yates said users can view trends over the last seven hours or seven days, as well as record peaks at any station site location, and even store their favourite location so they don’t have to click anything.

“Our data comes in near-real-time from the state-wide telemetry stations of WaterNSW, who we thank for making the data available,” Dr Yates said.

“Primarily we designed RiversNearMe with farmers in mind, but anyone who has an interest in rivers could get value from it, especially, for the price – it’s free.”

‘RiversNearMe’ is also part of a Food Agility CRC collaborative research project with Charles Sturt University, SunRice and AgriFutures Australia. It follows the recently released Combined Location Online Weather Data (CLOWD) apps for computer and mobile phone to enable farmers and growers to analyse recent and historic weather for any location in Australia at the touch of a map.

Contributing co-researchers included project lead Professor in Food Science Chris Blanchard in the Charles Sturt School of Dentistry and Medical Sciences, Charles Sturt School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering colleagues Professor Zahidul Islam and Dr Sabih Rehman, Charles Sturt PhD student Mr Allister Clarke, and Agricultural Research and Development Consultant Mr Russell Ford.

Food Agility Chief Scientist Professor David Lamb says the CRC is committed to investing in ‘agile’ research projects and teams who deliver impact for industry.

“The research agility demonstrated by the Enhancing Rice Provenance and Quality Prediction project team is exactly what we aim for as a CRC,” Professor Lamb said.

“RiversNearMe is the team’s second high-quality, industry-focused tool, on top of their quality assurance research and the CLOWD app, that will support better on-farm decision making within the rice industry and beyond.

“Helping farmers to monitor and manage the waterways that support our food production systems is fundamental to the sustainability and profitability of the industry.”