Community environmental policing: Assessing new strategies of public participation in environmental regulation

O’Rourke, Dara; Macey, Gregg P.

doi:10.1002/pam.10138

Cited by 97 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The types of volunteer monitoring efforts are also diversifying. In addition to weather, bird, and water monitoring, citizens also monitor a multitude of types of environmental systems and organisms, including air (O'Rourke and Macey 2003), amphibians (Shirose et al 1997), biodiversity (Cosquer et al 2012), mammals (Moyer-Horner et al 2012), invasive species (Gallo and Waitt 2011), forestry (Ballard et al 2008), marine environments (Evans et al 2000), and bees (Ashcroft et al 2012). These efforts have produced invaluable data that have been used by scientists to track changes in populations and environmental trends over time (e.g., Ticheler et al 1998, Boylen et al 2004, Bhattacharjee 2005, Greenwood 2007, Dickinson et al 2012) and by managers to modify practices to eliminate pollution (Da Silva Pinho 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual- and community-level impacts of volunteer environmental monitoring: a synthesis of peer-reviewed literature

Stepenuck¹,

Green²

2015

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Citizens have long contributed to scientific research about the environment through volunteer environmental monitoring programs. Their participation has also resulted in outcomes for themselves, their communities, and the environment. This research synthesizes 35 peer-reviewed journal articles that reported such outcomes through 2012. This collection of articles was derived from a pool of 436 peer-reviewed journal articles about participatory environmental monitoring. Reported outcomes for participants and communities ranged from increasing personal knowledge and community awareness to changing attitudes and behaviors, building social capital, and ultimately, influencing change in natural resource management and policies. Mixed results were reported in regard to citizen participation in natural resource decision-making processes and in terms of participant knowledge gain. Future research recommendations that address identified knowledge gaps include the following: (1) assessing knowledge beyond the basic content of the subject of monitoring to better address the value of volunteer environmental monitoring as a public participation tool; (2) conducting independent research across programs to enable null or negative outcome reporting, understand commonalities of outcomes across programs, and make linkages between outcomes and program characteristics; (3) carrying out rigorous research that includes data collection and statistical analysis focused on the effectiveness of citizen participation in decision making; (4) assessing the time component of outcome achievement to inform the volunteer monitoring community; and (5) conducting additional research to identify changes in attitudes and behaviors, particularly geared toward minimizing losses in biodiversity and impacts of climate change.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual- and community-level impacts of volunteer environmental monitoring: a synthesis of peer-reviewed literature

Stepenuck¹,

Green²

2015

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In our study, local residents, who were the first to observe and report violations or changes in water quality, are similar to the "sniffers" in the Louisiana and California "bucket brigades" who alert a trained sampler when they detect a potential air-quality problem (O'Rourke and Macey 2003), or the shopkeepers who deter potential perpetrators of crime simply by having their "eyes on the street" (Jacobs 1961). Although everyday monitoring is an important form of participation for watershed protection, it is often invisible to regulatory agency staff.…”

Section: Everyday Monitoring: Local Residents Enhance Monitoring Capamentioning

confidence: 96%

Beyond formal groups: neighboring acts and watershed protection in Appalachia

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores how watershed organizations in Appalachia have persisted in addressing water quality issues in areas with a history of coal mining. We identified two watershed groups that have taken responsibility for restoring local creeks that were previously highly degraded and sporadically managed. These watershed groups represent cases of self-organized commons governance in resource-rich, economically poor Appalachian communities. We describe the extent and characteristics of links between watershed group volunteers and watershed residents who are not group members. Through surveys, participant observation, and key-informant consultation, we found that neighbors -group members as well as non-group-members -supported the group's function through informal neighboring acts. Past research has shown that local commons governance institutions benefit from being nested in supportive external structures. We found that the persistence and success of community watershed organizations depends on the informal participation of local residents, affirming the necessity of looking beyond formal, organized groups to understand the resources, expertise, and information needed to address complex water pollution at the watershed level. Our findings augment the concept of nestedness in commons governance to include that of a formal organization acting as a neighbor that exchanges inforNeighboring acts and watershed protection in Appalachia 879 mal neighboring acts with local residents. In this way, we extend the concept of neighboring to include interactions between individuals and a group operating in the same geographic area.

show abstract

“…These examples have demonstrated the effectiveness of community participation in the collection of environmental data. O'Rourke and Macey discuss the use of "bucket brigade" sampling in which a mix of participants in different roles coordinate to carry out observation, sampling, and analysis of refinery emissions [25]. Other work has documented the use of community air quality sensing to identify polluters and enforce standards for diesel bus emissions [21] [19].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common Sense Community: Scaffolding Mobile Sensing and Analysis for Novice Users

Willett

Aoki

Kumar

et al. 2010

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. As sensing technologies become increasingly distributed and democratized, citizens and novice users are becoming responsible for the kinds of data collection and analysis that have traditionally been the purview of professional scientists and analysts. Leveraging this citizen engagement effectively, however, requires not only tools for sensing and data collection but also mechanisms for understanding and utilizing input from both novice and expert stakeholders. When successful, this process can result in actionable findings that leverage and engage community members and build on their experiences and observations. We explored this process of knowledge production through several dozen interviews with novice community members, scientists, and regulators as part of the design of a mobile air quality monitoring system. From these interviews, we derived design principles and a framework for describing data collection and knowledge generation in citizen science settings, culminating in the user-centered design of a system for community analysis of air quality data. Unlike prior systems, ours breaks analysis tasks into discrete mini-applications designed to facilitate and scaffold novice contributions. An evaluation we conducted with community members in an area with air quality concerns indicates that these mini-applications help participants identify relevant phenomena and generate local knowledge contributions.

show abstract

Community environmental policing: Assessing new strategies of public participation in environmental regulation

Cited by 97 publications

References 25 publications

Individual- and community-level impacts of volunteer environmental monitoring: a synthesis of peer-reviewed literature

Individual- and community-level impacts of volunteer environmental monitoring: a synthesis of peer-reviewed literature

Beyond formal groups: neighboring acts and watershed protection in Appalachia

Common Sense Community: Scaffolding Mobile Sensing and Analysis for Novice Users

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About