Where’s Our Water was a team project I worked on during my second year at Newcastle University. We were tasked with designing, developing and presenting a website according to provided guidelines.
I was primarily responsible for the map page, where I used the Google Maps API to provide an interactable map that displays markers for reported water sources. These reported water sources were stored in a database which my page queried. This was free to use at the scale we were operating, if the site was released ‘commercially’ and saw significant use then there would be a charge to use this service.
The website was required to align with a number of the UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals which can be found at here. Our team settled on 3 – Good Health and Wellbeing, 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation and 13 – Climate Action by creating a website that allows users to see reported locations where free water is provided, and to report such locations themselves.
The intention being to reduce reliance on buying bottled water, or even other bottled or canned drinks, thereby encouraging healthier consumption and less waste. This would also inform people of where to find clean water if such sources are not easily found.
The relational database stored data for user accounts, water sources and their details. Users could add new water sources, set what periods they are accessible for, and submit ratings. The rating system was intended to limit abuse by allowing the userbase to self police sources, rating them low if they appear to be false and making it easier to filter out false/poor sources.