Gertz Emily, Di Justo Patrick. Environmental Monitoring with Arduino

O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2012. — 79 p. — ISBN: 978-1-449-31056-1.This book is all about making the invisible visible. Each project introduces a particular environmental condition, and then teaches you step by step how to build a small, inexpensive electronic device that can monitor that condition, and communicate back what it finds. When you start monitoring the environment, something happens: You start to understand the world around you in a new way. Build a water quality tester, and a beautiful, clear-running stream may become a beautiful clear stream with a high particulate count (see Chapter 6).
Build a gadget to measure temperature and humidity, and you’ll see for yourself that “high noon” is not the hottest part of the day; that actually comes around 3 p.m. (see Chapter 8). Build an electromagnetic field detector, and you’ll discover even a quiet room is buzzing with unseen, unheard electrical vibrations (see Chapter 4). We usually turn environmental monitoring over to the scientific experts at government agencies, universities, and corporations. They come armed with complicated and expensive equipment as well as specialized educations, and occasionally their own institutional agendas. Since the natural environment is complex, even more so for all the stuff we human beings and our activities have added to the mix, this sort of expertise has an important role in our lives and in our communities. Scientific analysis and expertise are key to creating effective regulations that control the impacts human activities have on the environment and our health. Monitoring the environment for ourselves, however, pulls the curtain back on what all those experts are doing. Understanding brings knowledge, and with knowledge comes the power to make decisions that can change our lives for the better—from lowering the electric bill, to holding polluters accountable, to helping scientists study the changing climate.