Adopting Citizen Science as a Tool to Enhance Monitoring for an Environment Agency

Abstract

The New South Wales' (NSW) Government of Australia through the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) has recognised the potential of citizen science for improving environmental outcomes for NSW. Citizen science can achieve two primary objectives for government: (1) expanding the potential for information collection, analysis, and curation; and (2) engaging and motivating the community who become involved. It also has the potential to increase inter-agency collaboration to achieve state and national large-scale policy objectives. In 2016 OEH made a firm commitment to citizen science by creating a position focused on citizen science and releasing a three-year citizen science strategy. The vision of this strategy is to "drive a new era of public participation in science by developing collaborative projects that support decision-making and are engaging for the public." The emphasis on a real contribution by citizen scientists to decision-making is a critical and distinguishing part of this vision. To support this, OEH has a position statement defining the standards adhered to by OEH citizen science projects. Here we detail how the staff involved achieved agency support and endorsement for its citizen science program. We describe pilot studies implemented to demonstrate how citizen science can augment environmental monitoring and enhance the way OEH interacts with its citizen science community. We outline organisational challenges (e.g., data management, agility, and branding) that we encountered when establishing a citizen science program as well as the steps undertaken to address these challenges. We close by discussing some of the ways government can use citizen science as part of Australian policy delivery, and articulate ways in which the government can provide ongoing support to citizen science.

Measuring epistemic success of a biodiversity citizen science program: A citation study

“…In response to these concerns, many contributions have been recently proposed, which aim to demonstrate the epistemic value of citizen science. This is notably the case in ecology and environmental science, where participative practices have proved their utility for biodiversity evaluation [ 19 ], the knowledge and management of natural resources [ 20 , 21 ], or the assessment of ecosystemic services [ 21 ]. Given these purported successes, a more general question emerges about the conditions which maximize the scientific ‘‘impact and reuse” of citizen science data and results [ 22 ].…”

Citizen science in cities: an overview of projects focused on urban Australia

“…This shift may in turn afford greater concentrated effort towards conserving remaining urban green spaces. By involving members of the public in scientific research, citizen science can help researchers and policymakers understand global problems and support local solutions (Roger et al 2019). For example, Tulloch et al (2020) highlighted the role citizen science has in monitoring the increased use of urban and peri-urban habitats of bird species after Australia's horrific 2019-20 bushfire season.…”

“…Globally, citizen science has experienced unprecedented growth over the past decade, largely due to advances in, and availability of, technology which has facilitated the involvement of millions of people in science (Bonney et al 2014;Roger et al 2019). Citizen science can include (but is not limited to) a broad range of activities, from analysing scientific data, sharing health information, mapping galaxies and making new low-cost technologies (Bonney et al 2014;Chandler et al 2017;Roger et al 2020).…”

Drain Detectives: Lessons Learned from Citizen Science Monitoring of Beach Drains

“…Marketing was not available to boost awareness of the signs within the community. Promotion and marketing of citizen science projects is not an uncommon constraint within government-led citizen science projects (Roger, Turak, and Tegart 2019).…”

“…Citizen science has become increasingly popular for stand-alone environmental monitoring programs or to support existing monitoring (Pocock et al 2017;Roger, Turak, and Tegart 2019). Citizen science offers a potential low-cost method to increase the spatial and temporal scale of environmental monitoring.…”