The INSPIRE Project is an initiative that uses data to drive collaboration, advance research, enrich student learning, and inform sustainability policy and action. DataHub powers INSPIRE by connecting datasets, sensors, tools, expertise, and people through an accessible platform. Together, they improve access to data, enabling purpose-driven solutions, evidence-based decision-making, and meaningful real-world impact.
Explore datapoints across all INSPIRE communities
Select a map point to learn about a sensor or dataset and open its Data Summary.
Total Datasets
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# of Parameters
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Participating Groups
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Citizen Science
Explore community observations or contribute a new report.
Flood Reporting
Reports of flooding and drainage conditions in all communities
Engineering Science Quest (ESQ) University of Waterloo (UW) Water Quality
Weekly water quality sampling at reference locations across the University of Waterloo campus, run by the Engineering Science Quest (ESQ) program.
INSPIRE Waterloo
INSPIRE Community
Connecting People to Data
The INSPIRE Project is an initiative that uses data to drive collaboration, advance research, enrich student learning, and inform sustainability policy and action. DataHub powers INSPIRE by connecting datasets, sensors, tools, expertise, and people through an accessible platform. This is the dedicated home for the University of Waterloo community’s own datasets, sensors, and citizen science.
Explore datapoints across INSPIRE Waterloo
Select a map point to learn about a sensor or dataset and open its Data Summary.
Total Datasets
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# of Parameters
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Participating Groups
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Citizen Science at Waterloo
Explore community observations or contribute a new report.
Flood Reporting in Waterloo
Reports of flooding and drainage conditions in Waterloo
Engineering Science Quest (ESQ) University of Waterloo (UW) Water Quality
Weekly water quality sampling at reference locations across the University of Waterloo campus, run by the Engineering Science Quest (ESQ) program.
Data Summary
Select a sensor from the sidebar or click View Data Summary on a map marker.
Multiple sensors selected — choose one to view its profile:
Data Information
Contact Information
Pre-Processed Dashboards
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DATA DOWNLOAD OPTIONS
Latest 2 Weeks
Download readings from the latest available two-week period shown in the summary graphs.
Full Dataset
Download every available reading for this sensor or dataset.
Custom Time Range
Choose inclusive start and end dates for the download.
Data Upload
Upload historical data for this sensor or dataset. Users are responsible for backup and cleaning of data. You must enter your email and be on an approved list to upload data directly to DataHub. Contact datahub@uwaterloo.ca for support and access.
Drop CSV or vendor table export here, or browse
Program Information
Engineering Science Quest (ESQ) University of Waterloo (UW) Water Quality
Weekly water quality sampling at reference locations across the University of Waterloo campus, run by the Engineering Science Quest (ESQ) program.
Sampling Locations
Program Information
Sampling Location
Measurements Over Time
Graph Timeframe
to
Sampling History
Download
Download all observations for this sampling location.
Community-submitted observations document flooding conditions on and around the University of Waterloo. Each marker represents one distinct report and its photographs.
Report Overview
Explore Reports
Download
Download one row per current flood report, including observation details, coordinates, photo counts, and public photo links.
Photographs are blurred by default because they may show injured or deceased birds. Select this option to reveal all photographs, or reveal individual images as needed.
Program Information
UW SER Bird-Glass Collision Monitoring
Report Overview
Explore Reports
Download
Download one row per bird-collision report, including public observation details, coordinates, photo counts, and public photo links. Submitter emails and ArcGIS account fields are excluded.
Choose the parameters once, then either build a graph or download a larger CSV range. Citizen Science datasets are not included.
Axis selections
X axis
Time and Date is the default. Choose a sensor parameter to compare one measurement against another.
Y-axis parameters
Choose one or more parameters, up to six.
Chart options
Chart format
Graph data
These settings control the graph and graph image only.
Y-axis display
The value range also applies after Reset zoom.
Limit: 5,000 aligned timestamps
CSV download
Uses the selected parameters but has its own period and interval. You do not need to build the graph first.
Automatic keeps the finest interval that fits the download limit.
Limit: 250,000 aligned timestamps
Data is aligned by timestamp without filling gaps. If a chosen fixed interval exceeds a limit, select Automatic, choose a coarser interval, or shorten the period. Counts are summed; continuous measurements are averaged. Toronto time is shown, while UTC is retained in downloads.
🔍 Drag to zoom into a range, scroll to zoom in/out, or use "Reset zoom" (top-right of the chart) to return to the full view
Select parameters, then choose Build graph.
SLC Air Quality Research Workspace
Student Life Centre loading dock study
Explore traffic, outdoor air, and indoor conditions together
This exploratory workspace examines whether delivery and vehicle activity near the loading dock corresponds with short-term outdoor air-quality changes, whether those changes reach the adjacent likely Great Hall intake, and whether related changes are detectable indoors.
Interpret with care
These views show associations, not proof of causation or regulatory-grade exposure. Missing readings remain blank and are never interpolated.
Choose your starting point
How would you like to explore the study?
Both paths use the same data and tested calculations. You can switch paths at any time.
Advanced analysis
Choose one analysis tool
Select a tool to see its controls and purpose. No analysis data is requested until you choose dates and run the selected tool.
Choose an analysis above. Its controls will open below without loading data automatically.
Source intervals—Flagged for review—Excluded by choices—Included by choices—
Interval (Waterloo)
Source
Flag
Coverage
Decision
Details
Choose a date range and review quality.
Flags are screening aids, not proof that a measurement is wrong. The download retains every original aligned measurement, records separate inclusion decisions for each source, and provides parallel analysis-ready columns that are blank only where the selected rules exclude that source. A VisiblAir gap therefore does not remove valid outdoor observations. No raw value is edited, deleted, filled, or overwritten.
Hourly Sensor Comparison
Compare traffic, outdoor air, indoor air, and Kitchener Air Quality Ontario readings.
Air Quality Ontario station 26060 in Kitchener provides hourly NO2, PM2.5, and O3 context. It is not co-located with the SLC instruments and must not be treated as a calibration value.
Provisional / unverified
Indoor comparison
VisiblAir VOC Index is a relative indoor signal rather than a VOC concentration. Compare timing and patterns only; do not interpret numerical differences as equivalent pollutant concentrations.
Known gaps
VisiblAir power-loss periods and other source outages remain visible as gaps. Outdoor observations are retained even when no indoor reading is available.
Wind Rose
Summarize how often wind arrived from each direction and how those observations were distributed by speed.
Direction is meteorological: each petal identifies the compass direction where the wind came from. Wind direction is combined with a circular/vector mean and speed with an arithmetic mean for each 15-minute interval. Speeds below 0.5 m/s are reported as calm because direction is not meaningful. Missing readings remain missing and are not interpolated. Local buildings can alter wind flow, so this screening view should not be treated as a dispersion model.
Day and Time Patterns
Find recurring weekday, weekend, and time-of-day patterns for traffic and air measurements.
Each cell summarizes complete hourly observations for one local weekday and hour.
Weekday and weekend profiles
The lines combine Monday–Friday and Saturday–Sunday at each local hour.
Choose settings and update the patterns.
Hours use Waterloo local time. Traffic counts are summed within each hour; air measurements are averaged. All four 15-minute values must be present for an hour to be included. Missing periods are excluded, never treated as zero, and never interpolated. These recurring patterns are descriptive and do not establish causation.
Traffic and Outdoor Air
Test whether loading-dock vehicle activity is associated with changes in outdoor AirSENCE monitor readings.
Traffic time is shown on the horizontal axis. The air series is shifted by the selected lag.
Choose settings and run the analysis.
Traffic–pollutant scatterplot
Only intervals with both measurements are plotted.
Choose settings and run the analysis.
Pearson correlation summarizes linear association only. It does not establish that traffic caused a pollutant change, and this first analysis does not adjust for wind, weather, regional background, time of day, or other sources. Missing measurements are excluded pairwise and are never estimated.
Loading Dock Air Monitor Comparison
Compare the two outdoor monitors, including time lags and optional wind direction screening.
AirSENCE 757 is shifted by the selected lag. Wind-excluded and missing pairs remain chart gaps.
Choose settings and run the pathway analysis.
Source–intake scatterplot
Only measurement pairs matching the selected wind conditions are plotted.
Choose settings and run the pathway analysis.
Wind direction and speed come from AirSENCE 808 during the source interval. The compass sectors describe reported wind direction; none is currently designated as pointing toward the intake. A lagged association may be consistent with movement between the monitors, but it does not prove pollutant transport into the intake or Great Hall. Missing values are never interpolated.
Outdoor Air to Indoor Air Comparison
Compare the outdoor monitors to indoor signals at selected time lags.
The indoor series is shifted by the selected lag. VisiblAir power-loss periods remain visible as gaps.
Choose settings and run the indoor analysis.
Outdoor–indoor scatterplot
Only intervals with both selected measurements are plotted.
Choose settings and run the indoor analysis.
VisiblAir VOC Index describes relative changes in the indoor VOC signal; it is not an absolute VOC concentration or a direct measurement of NO2 or PM2.5. Association may be explored, but common timing does not demonstrate a shared source. Facilities considers it very likely that the intake beside AirSENCE 757 serves the Great Hall, but complete mechanical documentation has not confirmed the connection. A lagged association does not prove that pollution travelled through the intake. Missing values are never interpolated.
Event Explorer
Examine sensor responses around observed idling, high traffic, or elevated outdoor pollution.
Minute zero is the observed start or automatically detected peak interval. Missing values are not filled.
Choose settings and explore events.
Events in this analysis
No event analysis has been run.
Automatically detected events are relative to the selected period and percentile. Manual events reflect an observer's record of vehicle presence and engine status. Neither establishes that a vehicle caused a pollutant change. Event averages can also hide important differences between individual events; download the event-level data for review.
Record an Idling Observation
Add a directly observed loading-dock vehicle stop for use in the Event Explorer.
Retained research record
Entries are append-only research records. Record what was directly observed and use “likely” or “unknown” when engine status is uncertain. Observer email is retained for audit purposes but is not returned by public APIs or downloads. Entry is available only to configured observer emails.
Start (Waterloo)
Duration
Vehicle
Idling status
Location
Notes
Run the Event Explorer or save an observation to refresh this list.
Bird Migration Weather Explorer
University of Waterloo North Campus
Explore weather conditions that may shape bird migration
Use local surface-weather history to find patterns in wind, precipitation, temperature, humidity, and pressure. This is a weather-context tool: it does not estimate migration activity until a reviewed bird-observation dataset is added.
Step 1 — Explore the weather record
Choose a period and weather measure
Each calendar cell represents the evening beginning on that date and the following early morning, from 18:00 to 06:00 Waterloo time.
15-minute data coverage—Nights with measurements—Selected-period value—Nighttime wind observations—
Night-by-night weather calendar
Colour shows the selected weather measure; hatched cells have no measurement.
The default uses the middle 90% of measured nightly values so isolated extremes do not flatten the colours. Moving these controls changes only the colour scale, not the data.
Time-of-day and seasonal pattern
Each cell summarizes the selected measure for one month and hour across the chosen period.
Nighttime surface-wind direction
Frequency of the direction the wind came from during non-calm 18:00–06:00 observations.
Step 2 — Future data integration
Add migration observations when they are available
The nightly weather download uses a stable night_date field so radar, acoustic-monitoring, collision, or community-science observations can later be aligned without redesigning the weather workspace.
Information Network for Sustainability, Policy, Innovation, Research, and Education
The INSPIRE Project uses data to drive collaboration, advance research, enrich student
learning, and inform policy. We believe better access to data leads to better research,
purpose-driven solutions, more informed decisions, and real-world policy impact.
Rather than building another single-purpose “living lab,” INSPIRE was created as an
overarching support system: a network that brings together existing and new datasets,
sensors, and research projects from across the University and beyond, and houses them in
one accessible, open home. We connect people with the data, tools, and contacts they need
to move ideas forward, whether that means accessing a dataset, finding the right
collaborator, or getting support to launch something new.
INSPIRE is for researchers, but not only for researchers. Students can build skills through
hands-on projects. Teachers can use the data in the classroom. Community groups,
non-profits, industry, and municipal agencies can partner with us, contribute data, or draw
on our network for support. Anyone with an idea, a question, or a dataset that needs a home
has a place here.
Turning ideas into active projects by connecting people with the right expertise and resources.
Hosting and making accessible datasets from a wide range of contributing partners, including data that would otherwise be closed or hard to find, along with contact information for the groups responsible for them.
Linking researchers, students, professional organizations, and community groups with others working in the same space, through focus groups, knowledge-sharing, and networking sessions.
Partnering with organizations that support shared goals around sustainability and evidence-based action.
DataHub is the platform that brings INSPIRE’s Labs to life: the open,
accessible home where datasets from every Lab are displayed so anyone can explore, find,
and connect with the data, projects, and people that make up the INSPIRE Project.
Our Values
Accessibility
Data and knowledge should be easy to find and use. We work to make datasets open when
possible, or clearly point to the right person when datasets cannot be publicly available.
Innovation
Anyone with an idea, a question, or something to contribute has a place in the INSPIRE network.
Collaboration
Good research doesn’t happen in isolation. We prioritize connecting people:
students, researchers, community members, industry, and municipal partners.
Evidence-Based Impact
Data on its own is not the goal. We are driven by the impact that data can have
to help further research, innovation, and technology development, and to influence
evidence-based policy change.
The INSPIRE Labs
INSPIRE is organized into subject-specific Labs. Each Lab houses research projects,
datasets, citizen science, and sensor networks from a range of contributing organizations
(some run directly by INSPIRE, others simply hosted by it).
BREATHE Lab
Air quality and atmosphere-related datasets.
BUILD Lab
Building performance, including building energy use.
GROW Lab
Biodiversity, vegetation, wildlife, and other living systems.
MOVE Lab
Mobility and transportation.
PULSE Lab
Base-data, weather, climate, and other foundational data that support work across the other Labs.
SWIM Lab
Water quality, water quantity, nature-based infrastructure, and stormwater management.
DataHub by the Numbers
Live totals across every dataset currently hosted on DataHub.
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Sensors deployed
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Cities monitored
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Datasets on DataHub
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Contributing groups
Sensors are deployed in the INSPIRE community network.
Breakdown by INSPIRE Lab
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Our Own Initiatives
Alongside the datasets we host from external research groups, INSPIRE runs initiatives of
its own — including citizen science programs that get students and community members
directly involved in data collection and research.
Initiative
Summary
On DataHub
Flood Reporting Citizen Science
Community-submitted reports of flooding and drainage conditions on and around campus.
Electrical Conductivity
Continuous electrical-conductivity monitoring at creek and lake outlets.
Tree Box
Instrumented tree monitoring-sap flow and stem growth.
Coming soon
Soil Profile Kit
Soil moisture and temperature profiles at monitored sites.
Coming soon
Funding Partners
Pearl Sullivan Engineering Ideas Clinic
2025–2026 Electrical Conductivity Meter (Laurel Creek Outlet)
2026–2027 Tree Box
2026–2027 Soil Profile Kit
Logo
Region of Waterloo Community Endowment Fund
2026–2027 Electrical Conductivity Meter (QNC Outlet)
Project Collaborators
River Hydraulics Research Group
Global Environmental Measurement and Monitoring
Pearl Sullivan Engineering Ideas Clinic
University of Waterloo Faculty of Engineering
The full INSPIRE team and contributor list, plus a contact form, is on the
page.
INSPIRE Communities
Global Network
INSPIRE is a growing network of community DataHubs. Select a community below to open its site.
Welcome to the INSPIRE blog, where we share notes, research, data, community activities, events, and updates from across the INSPIRE network.
Pinned Posts
WelcomeINSPIREd Thoughts
Welcome to INSPIRE: Information Network for Sustainability, Policy, Innovation, Research, and Education!
September 11, 2026 ·
We are excited to launch this website to connect people, ideas, data, and research on environmental sustainability at the University of Waterloo and beyond. Through shared datasets, sensors, citizen science, and collaborative projects, we hope to make environmental information more accessible while creating opportunities to learn, contribute, and collaborate.
This is just the beginning! We look forward to seeing where this journey takes us and building INSPIRE together.
On behalf of the INSPIRE Team,
Thiruni & Erin
Latest Posts
Community & Events
Join us at the Environmental Humanities Symposium
September 13, 2026 ·
INSPIRE will be at the Environmental Humanities Symposium at the University of Waterloo on October 17, 2026; come say hello!
We're excited to share that INSPIRE will be attending the Environmental Humanities Symposium, taking place Saturday, October 17, 2026 from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM at EV3, 200 University Avenue West, University of Waterloo.
The symposium brings together scholars, artists, and practitioners working at the intersection of environmental studies and the humanities, with keynote presentations, plenary discussions, and roundtable sessions exploring themes such as research-creation methodologies, more-than-human futures, and ecological challenges in urban and wilderness contexts.
Have a question or want to get involved? Fill out the form below and we'll get back to you at datahub@uwaterloo.ca.
Add a Sensor or Dataset
Are you a researcher or campus partner interested in making a sensor or dataset available through DataHub?
Complete our onboarding survey so we can review the dataset and help add it to the site. Citizen-science
observations should instead be submitted through the form for the relevant citizen-science project.
