Baltic Environmental Forum Lithuania together with an experts from Ministry of Environment and IT product development has formed a team called LITMUS and participated in online Clean Water Hackathon organized by Katalista Ventures team. The goal was to increase awareness about water pollution problem in the Baltic states and create solutions that have both financial validity and positive environmental impact.

Teams worked with mentors from various sectors for a week to shape the ideas and learn to pitch them to investors. A jury of investors later judged the ideas based on the problem addressed, their impact and business model viability.

LITMUS team addressed the problem of ineffective national water quality monitoring system. In Lithuania as well as other Baltic states, the network of water monitoring points and frequency of sampling is insufficient. As a result, there is a lack of data to pin down what kind of pollution is there on the local level, where it occurs from and which measures are needed to reduce or halt it.

The LITMUS team has proposed the idea how one could employ citizen science and involve communities and to address water quality data gaps and support decision making of national and local authorities as well as businesses and non-profit initiatives. The final idea of the LITMUS was inspired by Deltares Nitrate app with the technology to scan the litmus test paper and evaluate the level of nitrates. The team proposed to adapt the app, expand its functionality and introduce it to the wider public via clean water campaigns, partnerships with businesses and tourism sector, to involve citizens in data collection via gamified and fun experience. Finding self-sustaining business model still remains the biggest challenge with a hope to find a solution in near future.