As the summer comes to a close, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is encouraging Delawareans and visitors to the First State to use their smartphones to monitor environmental change.

DNREC’s divisions of Watershed Stewardship and Climate, Coastal and Energy recently installed five monitoring stations at three sites along Delaware’s beaches and at two sites comprising the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Visitors to the beach sites can use a smartphone app called CoastSnap, while guests at the DNERR sites can upload and send photos by email through Chronolog.

CoastSnap locations include Broadkill Beach, Herring Point in Cape Henlopen State Park and the south side of Indian River Inlet in Delaware Seashore State Park. CoastSnap is a partnership between DNREC, the University of Delaware and Delaware Sea Grant, which funded the initiative.

Chronolog stations are located at the St. Jones Reserve in Dover and at the Blackbird Creek Reserve in Townsend. For both efforts, the photos will be used to create a time-lapse project to observe and document environmental changes.

Instructions on how to upload photos are displayed at each of the locations.