News & Events
New article in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment!
MESA Principal Investigator, Dr Tim Sullivan, and Masters' student, Lauren Quinlivan, have co-authored a recent publication with Dr Debbie Chapman of the United Nations GEMS/Water centre at the UCC Environmental Research Institute.
This paper, entitled Applying citizen science to monitor for the Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 6.3.2: a review, reviews the current state of the knowledge regarding the use of citizen science in water quality monitoring, and comments on the use of citizen science to support specific UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The paper is published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, and the study was part-funded by the UCC Centre for Global Development (CDG), with generous support from FreshWaterWatch of the Earthwatch Institute.
The full article can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-8193-6
Abstract
The United Nations has called for increased public participation in scientific research, to benefit professionals, the public and the planet. Citizen science has been suggested as a cost-effective means by which this call can be met, and by which monitoring for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may be carried out. Indeed, citizen science has gained significant attention in recent years as the scale of environmental issues surpasses the monitoring resources that currently exist. However, many challenges continue to act as a barrier to the acceptance of citizen science as a reliable scientific approach. Here, the current state of knowledge on the use of citizen science in water quality monitoring is reviewed, and the potential for utilizing this approach to enhance monitoring for SDG Indicator 6.3.2 on the “proportion of bodies of water of good ambient water quality” is evaluated. The objective of this review is to identify key knowledge gaps and hurdles hindering the adoption of citizen science contributions to water quality monitoring under the SDGs, so that these gaps may be addressed in a timely manner for future monitoring programmes.