Citizen science in Australia’s waterways: investigating linkages with catchment decision-making

ABSTRACT

Citizen science can be a viable mechanism to foster productive linkages between community and government for sustainable water resource management. In Australia, this potential has longstanding policy support but research into program extent, characteristics or impact on decision-making processes has been lacking. This article draws on a temporal analysis of data records from two citizen science programs and a nationwide survey of 47 program coordinators representing 43 freshwater and estuarine citizen science programs to examine these knowledge shortfalls. Results indicate that program activity has contracted in Victoria but increased in the ACT, with additional evidence indicating a nationwide contraction. Survey results revealed programs operating nationwide and largely implemented as a community-government partnership, combining data and educative priorities. Despite 70 per cent of programs having goals to inform catchment decision-making, data use was verified for less than half of programs. Program coordinators reported several social, organisational and technical barriers that limit this uptake. In highlighting these issues, we make three recommendations for enhancing linkages between citizen science and catchment decision-making: (1) increasing institutional support; (2) improving coordination and embracing new possibilities for collaboration; and (3) demonstrating and communicating program achievements.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen science
• community-based water monitoring
• natural resource management
• policy

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the citizen science coordinators and program leaders from across Australia for their contributions to this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Waterwatch is the main focus in this historical account due to a lack of documentation of other past and current freshwater citizen science programs in Australia.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Regional University Networks Water Futures Fund and the Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend and RTP Fee-Offset Scholarship through Federation University Australia.