New Chronolog Photo Station Encourages Citizen Science at Blackwater NWR

The Friends of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) have partnered with the Chronolog Citizen Science Project (https://beta.chronolog.io/about), an environmental monitoring website, to install a Chronolog photo station at the Observation Platform along the refuge Wildlife Drive.

Visitors can place their smartphone in the photo station to capture an image of the marsh and then email it to the Chronolog website, which stitches the photos together to create a crowdsourced, time-lapsed video illustrating changes to the marsh over time. The Blackwater NWR video can be viewed at https://beta.chronolog.io/site/BWR101.

Photo: Photo station with mounted bracket helps visitors position their smartphone to capture consistent photos of the marsh over time. (Credit: Friends of Blackwater)

The station is near the confluence of the Little Blackwater River and the Blackwater River, tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. This location provides views of tidal marshes, forests, and shallow open water. The refuge is impacted by sea level rise, which can drown tidal marshes and convert them to open water, as well as flood adjacent forests, kill trees, and create new tidal marshes. The Chronolog station engages visitors by allowing them to contribute their photos and witness how the ecosystem is changing over time.

For more information about the Chronolog project, contact Rick Abend, 443-521-2201, rdabend@yahoo.com.

The Friends of Blackwater is a nonprofit citizens’ support group founded in 1987, assisting staff at Blackwater NWR in Cambridge, Maryland, in carrying out their educational, interpretive, and public use missions. Visit the Friends at https://www.friendsofblackwater.org