About Us – Crowdsourced oceanographic research initiative

Our Modern Forel-Ule Scale business has its roots in the EU funded Citclops program aimed at developing systems to retrieve and use data on seawater colour, transparency, and fluorescence. This was achieved by using low-cost sensors combined with people acting as data carriers and citizen scientists. The online platform developed for the program allows users to add contextual information (e.g. georeferencing, time of measurement) and took into account existing experiences (e.g. Secchi Dip-In, Coastwatch Europe and Oil Reporter).

One of the products of the EU funded Citclops research program was the Modern Forel-Ule scale and toolkit which we now produce in Amsterdam. The research done by the NIOZ methodically and accurately measured the color of the traditional FUS used since the 19th century which contains poisonous liquids. Thereafter, we used a combination of high-quality plastic films to precisely replicate the colors while eliminating the risk of damaging the environment when taking a measurement. We strive to increase awareness about the importance of water worldwide.