CS:iDrop®

Safely managed drinking water is of utmost importance for civilizations and is a Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations Organization. In Germany, >99% of the population is supplied by local distributors through the regional water distribution system. These distributors have to make sure, that the supplied water complies with the safety regulations. In other countries such as the United States of America, this might potentially look different, as 13% of the population relied on self-supplied water sources in 2015. Drinking water whether delivered through a distribution system or obtained from a private well can be chemically drastically altered, when it is stagnant in the installation system for a prolonged timeframe. Certain heavy metals such as copper or lead can dissolve in the drinking water. The extent of these changes can be different for different households or a specific installation part. A promising way to potentially measure these changes in each household taps is in citizen science approaches, such as CS:iDrop. CS:iDrop enabled citizens to sample and analyze drinking water collected from their own kitchen tap. The project was conducted at the Ruhr-University Bochum in Bochum (Germany). CS:iDrop involved participants in several project stages and several different formats. Citizens participated in the method development as well as in the collection of the scientific data. Over 800 citizens participated in >50 project-related events (workshop days, dialogue events, …) from March 2021 till December 2024.