Deploying equipment for long-term or high spatial resolution monitoring can quickly become costly. Unfortunately, estimating the environmental impact of emerging contaminants often requires both long-term monitoring and a high number of sensors. In this webinar, we will discuss how to build research-grade sensor networks for less than 1% of the price of commercial equipment. To demonstrate real-world applicability, we will go in depth about the project failures that spurred this innovation, the development process of a low-cost fluorometer designed to characterize the environmental fate of wastewater-derived pharmaceuticals, and the opportunities that are made available through the use of low-cost sensors.