I've been supporting hydrological data collection for over two decades. When I first started in the early 90's, there was no clear defined trail on 'how to do it'. I learned over time what works and the right way to do it. I'd like to make a few comments.
You mention about cheap 'disposable' sensors. Truth be told, no reliable sensor is truly cheap. In sensing, we look at repeatability, accuracy and resolution. In the design of a sensor we also look at interfacing and field calibrations.
Field data collection systems are comprised of several parts. Power, Sensing, Data Logging and Telemetry. It's interesting, different vendors of this equipment take different approaches. Everything revolves around the abilities of the data logger. Let's look at several:
Hobo: http://www.onsetcomp.com/products This is a pretty good company. The sensors have good accuracy. The products are reasonably priced. However, you are locked into their products and limitations. I've seen Hobo used by students in course work.
You asked about organizations that engage in 'citizen science', I would start with the NOAA Co-ops program https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-dat... . This would give you the basics. Another route taken is through a college based program. http://iowafloodcenter.org/projects/stream-stage-sensor/rive... As you can see, Iowa has a program that is on the lines of what you are looking at.
You mention about cheap 'disposable' sensors. Truth be told, no reliable sensor is truly cheap. In sensing, we look at repeatability, accuracy and resolution. In the design of a sensor we also look at interfacing and field calibrations.
Field data collection systems are comprised of several parts. Power, Sensing, Data Logging and Telemetry. It's interesting, different vendors of this equipment take different approaches. Everything revolves around the abilities of the data logger. Let's look at several:
Hobo: http://www.onsetcomp.com/products This is a pretty good company. The sensors have good accuracy. The products are reasonably priced. However, you are locked into their products and limitations. I've seen Hobo used by students in course work.
What does the USGS, USACE, NOAA and BUREC use for data logging? They use capable data loggers that can accept SDI-12 and ModBus based sensors along with Analog based sensing. CS: https://www.campbellsci.com/dataloggers and Sutron: http://www.sutron.com/product/xlite-9210b/
As brought out in this thread, Telemetry is the weak link as the trade offs are range verses bandwidth verses data charges, etc.
The notion of Real-Time data is also a factor. Is Real-Time 'right now', every 15 minutes or hourly? All play a factor in telemetry.
@RiverKey2640