Water quality monitoring in the Xochimilco peri-urban wetland: experiences engaging in citizen science

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Pérez-Belmont ◽  
Jannice Alvarado ◽  
Nallely Vázquez-Salvador ◽  
Erika Rodríguez ◽  
Elsa Valiente ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Quality Monitoring ◽  
Urban Wetland

scholarly journals CWDAT—An Open-Source Tool for the Visualization and Analysis of Community-Generated Water Quality Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 207
Author(s):  
Annie Gray ◽  
Colin Robertson ◽  
Rob Feick
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Water Resource ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Quality Monitoring ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Community Based

Citizen science initiatives span a wide range of topics, designs, and research needs. Despite this heterogeneity, there are several common barriers to the uptake and sustainability of citizen science projects and the information they generate. One key barrier often cited in the citizen science literature is data quality. Open-source tools for the analysis, visualization, and reporting of citizen science data hold promise for addressing the challenge of data quality, while providing other benefits such as technical capacity-building, increased user engagement, and reinforcing data sovereignty. We developed an operational citizen science tool called the Community Water Data Analysis Tool (CWDAT)—a R/Shiny-based web application designed for community-based water quality monitoring. Surveys and facilitated user-engagement were conducted among stakeholders during the development of CWDAT. Targeted recruitment was used to gather feedback on the initial CWDAT prototype’s interface, features, and potential to support capacity building in the context of community-based water quality monitoring. Fourteen of thirty-two invited individuals (response rate 44%) contributed feedback via a survey or through facilitated interaction with CWDAT, with eight individuals interacting directly with CWDAT. Overall, CWDAT was received favourably. Participants requested updates and modifications such as water quality thresholds and indices that reflected well-known barriers to citizen science initiatives related to data quality assurance and the generation of actionable information. Our findings support calls to engage end-users directly in citizen science tool design and highlight how design can contribute to users’ understanding of data quality. Enhanced citizen participation in water resource stewardship facilitated by tools such as CWDAT may provide greater community engagement and acceptance of water resource management and policy-making.

scholarly journals Success factors for citizen science projects in water quality monitoring

2020 ◽  
Vol 728 ◽  
pp. 137843
Author(s):  
Anna San Llorente Capdevila ◽  
Ainur Kokimova ◽  
Saunak Sinha Ray ◽  
Tamara Avellán ◽  
Jiwon Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Success Factors ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Quality Monitoring ◽  
Science Projects

scholarly journals An Open-source Dual-beam Spectrophotometer for Citizen-science-based Water Quality Monitoring

HardwareX ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. e00241
Author(s):  
Jiansheng Feng ◽  
Banafsheh Khakipoor ◽  
Jacob May ◽  
Melissa Mulford ◽  
Joshua Davis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Quality Monitoring ◽  
Dual Beam

scholarly journals Social change innovations, citizen science, miniSASS and the SDGs

Water Policy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Taylor ◽  
Mark Graham ◽  
Adrienne Louw ◽  
Ayanda Lepheana ◽  
Bonani Madikizela ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Stakeholder Participation ◽  
Action Learning ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Quality Monitoring ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World

Abstract The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) describe a course of action to address poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). More specifically, SDG 6 clarifies how water quality, quantity and access are crucial to human well-being, and yet human activities are compromising water resources through over-exploitation, pollution, as well as contributing to the spread of disease. Globally aquatic ecosystems are highly threatened and concerted efforts by governments and civil society to ‘turn the situation around’ are simply not working. Human-created problems require human-centred solutions and these require different ways of thinking and acting to those behaviour patterns that are contributing to the challenges. In this paper, we first consider causal approaches to attitude change and behaviour modification that are simply not working as intended. We then explore enabling responses such as citizen science and co-engaged action learning as more tenable alternatives. SDG 6 has a focus on clean water and sanitation for all. The SDGs further clarify how the extent to which this goal can be realized depends, to a large extent, on stakeholder engagements and education. Through stakeholder engagements and educational processes, people can contribute towards SDG 6 and the specific indicator and target in SDG 6.b – Stakeholder participation. Following a three-year research process, that investigated a wide range of participatory tools, this paper explores how the Stream Assessment Scoring System (miniSASS; www.minisass.org) can enable members of the public to engage in water quality monitoring at a local level. The paper continues to demonstrate how miniSASS can contribute to the monitoring of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 6.3.2., as a Level Two indicator. miniSASS is proving popular in southern Africa as a methodology for engaging stakeholder participation in water quality monitoring and management. The technique costs very little to implement and can be applied by children and scientists alike. As a biomonitoring approach, it is based on families of macroinvertebrates that are present in most perennial rivers of the world. The paper concludes by describing how useful the miniSASS technique can be for addressing SDG 6.3.2 and that it can be applied in most regions of the world.

scholarly journals CITIZEN SCIENCE FOR WATER QUALITY MONITORING APPLYING FOSS

2019 ◽  
Vol XLII-4/W14 ◽  
pp. 119-126
Author(s):  
S. Jovanovic ◽  
D. Carrion ◽  
M. A. Brovelli
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Quality Monitoring ◽  
Smartphone Applications ◽  
Efficient Tool ◽  
State Of Art

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Citizen science is an efficient tool for data collection for scientific projects. In the framework of SIMILE Interreg Italy-Switzerland project, the citizen’s contribution to monitor the quality of lakes water has been envisaged. In the initial phase of this research, state of art of citizen science and water quality monitoring was investigated. The analysis of past and current projects, governed by different organizations and communities, pointed out a variety of tasks that can be accomplished by citizens. In these studies, authors stressed suitability of smartphones for the fulfilment of various assignments given to citizens. Due to that, in this research, different smartphone applications for water quality monitoring were tested and analyzed. Despite the fact that many applications for water quality monitoring are freely available, none of them is open source. Hence, this paper is proposing the design of a new application, for the purposes of SIMILE project, that will be free and open source, addressing not just users but also developers giving them a possibility for customization and improvement.</p>

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