Water colour is a very informative indicator of the ecological state of marine and fresh-waters. Until recently, only measurable with a suite of unwieldy instruments. Now these measurements can be made by citizen scientist using a smart phone app and some other easy to deploy instrumentation. These citizens will generate a large pool of valid data for calibration of satellite information and provide a synoptic view of river, lake and coastal water quality for natural resource management in Australian. Each participant will obtain a quantitative understanding of how local water bodies change seasonally and in response to short duration events such as floods or cyclones.