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Citizen Science - Opportunities In Hydrology And Water Resources

While citizen science has existed since the beginning of scientific practice, advances in sensing technology, data processing, visualization, and communication of ideas and findings are opening up many new avenues for public engagement in scientific study.

Author:Suleman Shah
Reviewer:Han Ju
Oct 04, 2022161 Shares2.4K Views
Citizen sciencerefers to the engagement of the general population in the study design, data gathering, and interpretation process alongside scientists.
While citizen sciencehas existed since the beginning of scientific practice, advances in sensing technology, data processing, visualization, and communication of ideas and findings are opening up many new avenues for public engagement in scientific study.
However, the form and quality of data acquired in citizen science projects may vary significantly from those collected in standard monitoring networks.
This presents processing, interpretation, and application issues, particularly in the assimilation of traditional knowledge, assessment of uncertainties, and participation in decision support.
It also necessitates caution in constructing citizen science programs such that the collected data complements other accessible information appropriately.

What Is Citizen Science?

The involvement of the general public (i.e., non-scientists) in developing new scientific information is considered citizen science.
There are several ways available, ranging from community-based data collecting to seeking contributions to carrying out different scientific activities with the assistance of big groups of people over the internet (i.e., crowd-sourcing).
Science requires more eyes, ears, and viewpoints than any one scientist can provide. Enter citizen science: a partnership between scientists and those of us who are just curious or concerned.
A citizen science initiative might include a single person or millions of individuals working together to achieve a shared objective.
Citizen science promotes a wide range of subjects, including ecology, astronomy, medicine, computer science, statistics, psychology, genetics, engineering, and many more.
Here are four characteristics of citizen science practice: (a) Anyone can participate, (b) all participants use the same protocol so that data can be combined and of high quality, (c) data can help natural scientists come to accurate conclusions, and (d) a large community of scientists and volunteers collaborate and share data, which the public and scientists have access to.

Explainer video: What is citizen science?

Citizen Science Concept

Citizen science is gaining popularity in natural science research. The aspect of "active" involvement distinguishes citizen science from less collaborative kinds of public participation in scientific research.
Citizen engagement in science is an idea that has developed from and has spread across many fields. Citizens undertook their "scientific" evaluations in the 1970s and 1980s to better grasp the hazards of their hazardous exposure. They had a political influence on scientific communication.
Citizen science may also appear at the intersection of political activity and volunteerism. The instance of Kyrgyzstan demonstrates how people are attempting to adjust to and grasp the change brought about by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Living in an unstable and changing world opens up new chances for individuals to play crucial roles in knowledge co-generation processes.
Professional scientists and donors are motivated by a variety of factors. Volunteer incentives are very dynamic, notwithstanding any generosity on the part of professionals.
Citizen science programs that engage citizens may have an impact on the results. Volunteers from various community elements may help enhance relationships between diverse institutional entities.
The Peruvian situation exemplifies this polycentricity and the need for knowledge to maintain its survival.

Role Of Citizen Science And Hydrology

Hydrology isn't an apparent citizen science field. More durable, cheaper, and lower-maintenance sensing technology opens citizen science data collecting prospects.
The significance of water resources for human development calls for unique techniques to generate new information about the water cycleand use this knowledge in water resources management.

Monitoring And Data Collection

The study of hydrological data requires repeated observations, such as extended time series of hydrological conditions and fluxes.
The traditional hydrometric practice has often been restricted to the professional setting and customized to the unique demands of official monitoring networks.
In contrast, a citizen science method of data collecting may necessitate a reduction in data quality due to alternative equipment and less regular sampling.
  • Precipitation:Rain gauges are well suited for use outside the conventional monitoring setting due to their simple design and low cost. New sensor technologies have the potential to make precipitation measurements less expensive and less error-prone. Other, more experimental approaches for measuring precipitation, such as cellular communication interference, are being developed and may someday give new opportunities for community participation.
  • Streamflow:Streamflow measurements are inherently tricky because most approaches rely on indirect data such as flow velocity and cross-sectional area. Traditional water level monitoring is difficult and time-consuming, and property laws further complicate regulations and other legal difficulties. There are examples of practical citizen science measurements of river level and flow, such as the Peruvian instance.
  • Water quality: Temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, conductivity/salinity, pressure, redox potential, and pH are all increasingly being measured using aquatic sensors. For continuous sampling, there are options to automate data collecting. The WaterBot system, which is still under development, contains a Sensor that continually records temperature conductivity, a Gateway that communicates this information through wifi to a central data server, and a Wiewer that allows for real-time monitoring.
  • Soil moisture:Soil moisture measurements are becoming more automated, for example, using time domain reflectometry sensors and associated technologies. The rising price and resilience of the technology enable a broader range of temporary and continuous applications, particularly in agricultural settings. Automated measurements are often less precise for predicting absolute volumes and may have unique technical restrictions due to various soil conditions.
  • Vegetation dynamics: Geotagged photography may allow for greater participation of non-experts in data collection and local assessment of remotely sensed goods. If enough information (e.g., location, time) is available, such data may be gathered from public archives of images. Field verification of plant kinds, spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation change, and features of ecosystem system stability that cannot be seen via remote sensing is still required.
  • Water use: The quantification of abstraction volumes and other forms of water consumption might be critical in optimizing water resource management. Such fluxes may be measured directly (through water meters, for example) or indirectly. With the introduction of smart sensors, such measurements may now be disseminated and incorporated into more complicated analytic systems.

Transmission And Processing Of Data

The low temporal frequency of most hydrological measures (e.g., hourly rainfall, daily streamflow measurement) allows for automated transmission over the internet or mobile connections.
Mobile phone service is becoming more prevalent in distant areas such as mountains. Standards for interfaces that connect to various devices, such as mobile phones and home networks, are evolving.
Before collecting data, citizen science data might be compared against traditional technologies/strategies.
The current research topic is incorporating anonymous data into hydrological simulation models.
Hydrological models often need specialized, high-quality, long-term data series for calibration and validation.
This may be incompatible with the scattered, transitory, and possibly lower-quality nature of data collected by citizen scientists.

Results, Scenarios, And Participatory Modeling

Visualization and communication guarantee that scientific knowledge is understandable to laypeople, allowing citizen scientists to benefit directly from their engagement.
Many important ideas and technologies have lately emerged in science-based decision support systems. Simulation games are more sophisticated virtual techniques for scenario development.
The Spatial Information Exploration and Viewing Environment enables the visualization of geographical data in three dimensions.
This approach enables the inclusion of traditional knowledge from various non-scientists simultaneously.
The most immersive cooperation between scientists and non-scientists occurs via cooperative data analysis, written test hypotheses, and generatowledge.
In this procedure, players from various backgrounds collaborate to build a model of the system under investigation.
The goal of this procedure is often direct decision-making, but it may also include social learning.

Citizen Science Opportunities In Water Resources Management

Citizen science strives to improve the administration of natural resources such as water. Relationships between "knowledge," "decision-making," and "actions" should be seen in a new light.
The phrase "citizen science" implies a political component rather than a technical dimension. People are not just interested in water, even if it is critical to survival.
Ideas and organizations that inspire and lead people's behavior are seldom specialized or focused on specific challenges. Much of what people do is the result of an interaction contact between existing (multi-purpose) organizations.

Knowledge-sharing Model

The most fruitful partnership occurs when citizens' and scientists' questions intersect. Citizen inquiries might vary significantly from those of professional scientists.
Even under these circumstances, citizen science initiatives may be effective if the joint advantages exceed the compromise of tailoring research topics to the interests of the other stakeholders.
Citizen science seeks to enhance the democratic involvement of marginalized people in society. The method of co-creating knowledge allows disadvantaged groups to participate more fully in formulating community-wide solutions.

The Authenticity Of The Generated Knowledge

Citizen science reports may find it challenging to flow into decision-making processes in developing nations partly due.
This is partly because it may not comply with the same assessment and validation requirements that scientific hydrological knowledge must.
Raising this subject is especially important in low-income nations where citizen-based knowledge may offer prospects for ecosystem service protections and poverty reduction results.

Improving Citizen Participation In Decision Making

The democratic aspect of citizen science may encourage more egalitarian decision-making by providing individuals with excellent knowledge about natural resources and enabling meaningful contributions to conversations and policy-making.
Using the thoughts of a bigger group of people to refashion more conventional scientific techniques may push the frontiers of knowledge and ingenuity.
In reality, inclusion may still be skewed since volunteers in citizen science programs are often individuals who are interested in and dedicated to further involvement with specific projects or modes of scientific inquiry.
Visual illustration of different people are connected worlwide through internet
Visual illustration of different people are connected worlwide through internet

Citizen Science-based Decision-making Feedback Loops

The connection between citizen science and decision-making must be evident and transparent. This may be interpreted in termsof feedback loops at several levels, and it is likely to be most promising when it is multi-functional across these levels.
A quick feedback loop at the individual level depends on the relevance and utility of the information gathered by the citizen scientist.
Another feedback loop is feasible when scientists participate in a knowledge co-generation process, mixing locally obtained data from citizen scientists with other existing datasets.

Promoting Long-Term Citizen Participation

Fostering Long-Term Citizen InvolvementInvolving people from the outset has the potential to increase the likelihood that the knowledge gained will be locally relevant and sustainable in the long run.
An ideal result would be for the most disadvantaged members of a community to have a feeling of ownership over the system being built collectively.
One must also know the power dynamics that impact cooperation and learning amongst divergent knowledge systems.
A particular type of institutional support is required to develop this kind of communication across diverse knowledge orientations.
This may mean, for example, that research funding involves assistance in developing strong interpersonal ties.
Citizen observers in impoverished nations sometimes earn a living through their participation. Volunteering and submitting data to a central location is a relatively new notion.

People Also Ask

How Is Citizen Science Beneficial For Society?

Citizen Science ensures that scientific goals are correctly matched with broad societal concerns, improves public confidence in science, and assists funding agencies in making better investments in research development and open innovation.

What Are The Four Main Features Of Citizen Science?

Here are four characteristics of citizen science practice: (a) anybody may join, (b) participants follow the same process, allowing data to be pooled and of high quality, (c) data can assist natural scientists in reaching actual findings, and (d) a large community of scientists and volunteers collaborate and exchange data.

What Is Citizen Science, And Why Is It Important?

Citizen science happens when individuals share their observations of the physical world to offer knowledge to the scientific community.
It is part of formulating research ideas, performing scientific experiments, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting outcomes, and even creating discoveries.

What Is The Concept Of Citizen Science?

Citizen science is the voluntary participation of the general people in scientific research. Citizen scientists may design experiments, gather data, assess outcomes, and troubleshoot issues.
Most citizen scientists in national parks gather data using tools given by project directors.

Conclusion

Despite being an essential component of scientific discovery and knowledge development, the notion and promise of citizen science have lately attracted more scholarly attention.
New technical advancements are enabling more efficient and unique ways of data collecting, processing, visualization, and communication.
These prospects make it pertinent and essential to consider citizen science's problems and opportunities, particularly in managing natural resources and utilizing them for human well-being.
This is especially true for water resources, which are often one of the essential ecosystem functions and a significant barrier to sustainable development and poverty reduction.
Because of the availability of inexpensive, robust, and highly automated sensors and the ability to combine them with powerful environmental models to create rich and interactive visualization methods, an enormous potential for increasing citizen involvement in data collection exists.
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Suleman Shah

Suleman Shah

Author
Suleman Shah is a researcher and freelance writer. As a researcher, he has worked with MNS University of Agriculture, Multan (Pakistan) and Texas A & M University (USA). He regularly writes science articles and blogs for science news website immersse.com and open access publishers OA Publishing London and Scientific Times. He loves to keep himself updated on scientific developments and convert these developments into everyday language to update the readers about the developments in the scientific era. His primary research focus is Plant sciences, and he contributed to this field by publishing his research in scientific journals and presenting his work at many Conferences. Shah graduated from the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (Pakistan) and started his professional carrier with Jaffer Agro Services and later with the Agriculture Department of the Government of Pakistan. His research interest compelled and attracted him to proceed with his carrier in Plant sciences research. So, he started his Ph.D. in Soil Science at MNS University of Agriculture Multan (Pakistan). Later, he started working as a visiting scholar with Texas A&M University (USA). Shah’s experience with big Open Excess publishers like Springers, Frontiers, MDPI, etc., testified to his belief in Open Access as a barrier-removing mechanism between researchers and the readers of their research. Shah believes that Open Access is revolutionizing the publication process and benefitting research in all fields.
Han Ju

Han Ju

Reviewer
Hello! I'm Han Ju, the heart behind World Wide Journals. My life is a unique tapestry woven from the threads of news, spirituality, and science, enriched by melodies from my guitar. Raised amidst tales of the ancient and the arcane, I developed a keen eye for the stories that truly matter. Through my work, I seek to bridge the seen with the unseen, marrying the rigor of science with the depth of spirituality. Each article at World Wide Journals is a piece of this ongoing quest, blending analysis with personal reflection. Whether exploring quantum frontiers or strumming chords under the stars, my aim is to inspire and provoke thought, inviting you into a world where every discovery is a note in the grand symphony of existence. Welcome aboard this journey of insight and exploration, where curiosity leads and music guides.
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