Overview:
Hydrological Soundscapes is a web application created for (and with) Benjamin Renard, a researcher at Inrae (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment) which allows visualizing and, more importantly, listening to hydrological regimes from all around the world. Streamflow data are used to automatically generate sounds/musics: notes from a piano are more or less high depending on the monthly average streamflow value, the music tempo is more or less fast depending on the overal yearly streamflow volumes, a bass plays loudly the mouths where the most floods occur, and so on...
This is a very fun and easy to use app that I strongly encourage you check out. Equip yourself with a headset or good speakers and visit the web site: https://hydrosoundscapes.recover.inrae.fr!
If you wish to learn more about Hydrological Soundscapes, I wrote an article for the Hydrological Science blog of the European Geoscience Union you can read here .
In a few words:
- Automatically generating melodies and sounds from data.
- Synchronisation between sounds and plots
- Interface adapted to any screen size (mobile, tablette, computer)
- Reactive interface, i.e. it adapts to every user inputs/interactions.
- Multi-language support (french and english for now but other language can easily be added)
- An in-app tutorial to guide the user through the app
- Many sound parameters can be tweaked (tempo, musical scale, drums, etc.)
- Combination between geographical mapping, sounds et plots.