Welcome to Strawberry Creek!
About Us
Strawberry Creek travels throughout the UC Berkeley Campus, and has been an integral part of our environment since the University's founding in 1868.
Home to several endangered/threatened species and native wildlife, Strawberry Creek is an urban watershed teeming with life. It also serves as an educational resource for several courses on campus.
The Strawberry Creek Monitoring Group was founded in 2024 as an offshoot of the Strawberry Creek Restoration Program (opens in new tab) .
Our mission is to bridge the gap between environmental data and community action. By deploying low-cost, high-frequency sensors throughout the watershed, we provide the data necessary to understand the health of our local ecosystem in real-time.
Our Work
Two plots: static alerts on the left showing live data, upper bound, lower bound, and alert trigger points; moving alerts on the right showing live data, moving average, percent enveloped, and alert trigger points.
Build with Our Creek Data API
Want to create tools using real-time creek data or host your own sensor data on our site? We offer free API access to our platform.
Query by sensor site, date range, and variable — and build on top of our work however you'd like!
View API DocumentationPerson looking to the right while observing an oil spill in water.
Anomaly Detection Development
In 2013, the Stanley Hall diesel spill wiped out Strawberry Creek’s native fish populations and triggered a seven-figure cleanup bill—damage that could have been largely avoided with earlier detection.
With support from UC Berkeley’s Office of Environment, Health & Safety and the Strawberry Creek Restoration Program, we installed a real-time sensor network at a fraction of the cost of commercial alternatives.
We design data models and sensor stacks around open source software and low-cost hardware so that communities with similar needs can adopt the technology easily.
Conductivity time series graph with prediction bands showing actual conductivity, predicted conductivity, and plus or minus 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 percent bands.
Live Data Alerts
We build smart alert systems that work off-grid and in real-time. Our tools use data models — including pattern recognition and predictive algorithms — to spot unusual activity in the creek before it becomes a problem.
We pull data from several sources, including:
- PurpleAir (air quality)
- Monitor My Watershed (water quality)
- Balance Hydro and Weather API (hydrology and weather)
- Sensors reporting directly to strawberrycreek.org
Strawberry Creek Monitoring Group members giving a creek tour at UC Berkeley near one of the sensors.
Community Outreach
We integrate sensor data into UC Berkeley coursework to foster interdisciplinary learning.
We host demonstration days on and off campus to showcase sensors and gather participant feedback.