by Sam Potteiger, WRRC Student Outreach Assistant
Natural resource scientists and managers depend on data, which is often costly and difficult to collect. Citizen science engages members of the community in scientific investigations through observation and other data collection activities. Opportunities for citizen involvement are increasing as the value of “crowd sourcing” is recognized and strategies are developed for assuring data quality. In Arizona, citizen science has been employed to provide data on rainfall, streamflow, and water quality, among other topics.
Rainlog, a cooperative rainfall monitoring network for Arizona, was developed at the University of Arizona. Because rain gauges in Arizona are sparse, there are large gaps in rainfall data coverage. This data sparseness translates to difficulty in accurately estimating precipitation. Citizens who participate in Rainlog are helping to fill data gaps by measuring and reporting rainfall at their homes or work places. To encourage wide-spread participation, Rainlog was developed to be easily accessible. Anyone with a rain gauge and access to the Internet can participate. Data collected through the Rainlog network is used for a variety of applications, including watershed management, weather reporting, hydrologic research, and drought planning. Participants can see their observations and the observations of neighbors instantaneously. Rainlog displays all data on real-time, high-resolution precipitation maps on its web page. These maps are useful in tracking variability in precipitation patterns and potential changes in drought status.
A well-established application of citizen science in Arizona is wet/dry mapping. The Nature Conservancy launched this program on the San Pedro River in 1999 to monitor the extent of flow in the river in the driest part of the year. On the third Saturday in June, volunteers walk, ride on horseback, or even kayak along discrete stretches of more than 220 stream miles. They are trained to use GPS units to pinpoint where the flow starts and ends. With this data, The Nature Conservancy hopes to assist scientists and water managers to quantify long-term trends in surface water patterns, better understand groundwater/surface water interactions, and manage wildlife populations and riparian habitats. Already, mapping has helped preserve the welfare of the San Pedro. Data from the first 12 years of wet/dry mapping show a steady increase in the wetted section of a five-mile stretch of the river where irrigated farms were retired for water conservation. Because of the success of wet/dry mapping of the San Pedro, similar efforts have been undertaken elsewhere in Arizona, including the Agua Fria River, Cienega Creek, and at tributaries to the San Pedro. Mapping at Cienega Creek even revealed a previously unmapped perennial stretch of the stream.
Riverwatch, an effort by the Friends of the Santa Cruz River (FOSCR), is another well-regarded example of citizen science in Arizona. Riverwatch is FOSCR’s water quality monitoring volunteer group. Each month, the group samples the river for physical, chemical, and biological water quality parameters. Field monitoring data has been collected by FOSCR along the Santa Cruz since 1986. Because of the extent and quality of its database, FOSCR frequently collaborates with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), other government agencies, and various research groups. One dataset provided by FOSCR was instrumental in securing $59 million in federal funding to upgrade a treatment plant, greatly improving water quality in the flow downstream from the plant—which Riverwatch has documented.
ADEQ has recognized the value of citizen science and has made it the focus of its new initiative, Arizona Water Watch. The initiative has two programs designed for volunteers aged ten and up: Citizen Science Water Monitoring and the Arizona Water Watch mobile app. Citizen Science Water Monitors undergo training to collect and prepare water samples for testing to help scientists find pollution sources and monitor restoration projects. By working with ADEQ scientists, citizens are able to design studies for their waterways and play an important role in their environmental protection. The Arizona Water Watch mobile app is simple and easy to use and anyone with a smartphone can download it for free from the app store. The citizen scientist visits a water body and takes a picture of it. Location coordinates are automatically recorded from the phone’s GPS. Next, participants answer a series of “yes/no” questions about the body of water. Finally, users submit their observations, which are automatically entered into an ADEQ database. Scientists then use the data in analyzing water quality issues, updating flow data, and identifying water bodies for future studies.
Citizen science is also a powerful tool for scientist-community collaboration. Dr. Monica Ramirez-Andreotta integrates this approach into her National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project, Gardenroots, which trains people in underserved communities to monitor the quality of their harvested rainwater, garden soil, and home garden crops. Participants take samples of their garden soil, the water from the garden hose, a few vegetables from the garden, and a few clippings from garden plants. Some samples they analyze themselves and others they hand over to a laboratory for analysis. A key tenet of the project is to utilize citizen science as a means of empowering communities. Dr. Ramírez-Andreotta is quoted on the Gardenroots website commending the ability of citizen science as a process that “not only makes scientific information more readily available, it also engages community members in the process of scientific inquiry, synthesis, data interpretation, and the translation of results into action.” Through participation in Gardenroots, underrepresented populations can have an improved understanding of environmental health, allowing them to more readily participate in environmental decision-making.
Citizen science is an important resource for scientists. In Arizona, citizen science efforts have demonstrated the value of citizen participation in data collection and connecting the scientific community with the public. The ADEQ’s new Arizona Water Watch mobile app points the way toward broad public engagement in generating scientific knowledge.