Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us?
For decades citizen science has been used in environmental monitoring, and perhaps most commonly in water quality monitoring, as a tool to supplement professional data. Hundreds of volunteer monitoring efforts have generated datasets that cover large geographic areas over multiple years, and these l...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Ubiquity Press
2019-11-01
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| Series: | Citizen Science: Theory and Practice |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/articles/222 |
| _version_ | 1811259163663138816 |
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| author | Kelly Albus Ruthanne Thompson Forrest Mitchell |
| author_facet | Kelly Albus Ruthanne Thompson Forrest Mitchell |
| author_sort | Kelly Albus |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | For decades citizen science has been used in environmental monitoring, and perhaps most commonly in water quality monitoring, as a tool to supplement professional data. Hundreds of volunteer monitoring efforts have generated datasets that cover large geographic areas over multiple years, and these large-scale datasets have been shown to be especially valuable for monitoring changes over time. Although volunteer water monitoring programs continue to grow worldwide, research shows that many of the existing datasets are still underutilized due to concerns about the accuracy of volunteer-collected data. An increasing number of “comparison studies” have attempted to address quality concerns by comparing volunteer data to professional data to assess relative accuracy, and the majority have reported that volunteer data are of a quality comparable to professional data. Nearly all of these studies, however, focused on a small subset of volunteer program data or data collected under experimental controls, and as such the results may not be applicable to existing, large-scale datasets with unknown controls and high levels of variation. Through a comprehensive look at water quality comparison studies to date, this review reveals a need for additional studies that specifically address the quality of highly variable, large-scale volunteer datasets and ultimately serve as a framework by which decades of volunteer efforts already in existence across the country can be better utilized. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T18:26:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6ec424b5fe5e41c8a31bdc9a41e3d663 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2057-4991 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T18:26:21Z |
| publishDate | 2019-11-01 |
| publisher | Ubiquity Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Citizen Science: Theory and Practice |
| spelling | doaj.art-6ec424b5fe5e41c8a31bdc9a41e3d6632022-12-22T03:21:13ZengUbiquity PressCitizen Science: Theory and Practice2057-49912019-11-014110.5334/cstp.22266Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us?Kelly Albus0Ruthanne Thompson1Forrest Mitchell2University of North TexasUniversity of North TexasTexas A&M AgriLife ResearchFor decades citizen science has been used in environmental monitoring, and perhaps most commonly in water quality monitoring, as a tool to supplement professional data. Hundreds of volunteer monitoring efforts have generated datasets that cover large geographic areas over multiple years, and these large-scale datasets have been shown to be especially valuable for monitoring changes over time. Although volunteer water monitoring programs continue to grow worldwide, research shows that many of the existing datasets are still underutilized due to concerns about the accuracy of volunteer-collected data. An increasing number of “comparison studies” have attempted to address quality concerns by comparing volunteer data to professional data to assess relative accuracy, and the majority have reported that volunteer data are of a quality comparable to professional data. Nearly all of these studies, however, focused on a small subset of volunteer program data or data collected under experimental controls, and as such the results may not be applicable to existing, large-scale datasets with unknown controls and high levels of variation. Through a comprehensive look at water quality comparison studies to date, this review reveals a need for additional studies that specifically address the quality of highly variable, large-scale volunteer datasets and ultimately serve as a framework by which decades of volunteer efforts already in existence across the country can be better utilized.https://theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/articles/222citizen sciencevolunteerwatermonitoringdata |
| spellingShingle | Kelly Albus Ruthanne Thompson Forrest Mitchell Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us? Citizen Science: Theory and Practice citizen science volunteer water monitoring data |
| title | Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us? |
| title_full | Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us? |
| title_fullStr | Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us? |
| title_short | Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us? |
| title_sort | usability of existing volunteer water monitoring data what can the literature tell us |
| topic | citizen science volunteer water monitoring data |
| url | https://theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/articles/222 |
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