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Citizen science approaches for water quality measurements

The Science of The Total Environment 2023 52 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 50 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Sara Blanco Ramírez Ilja van Meerveld, Jan Seibert, Ilja van Meerveld, Sara Blanco Ramírez

Summary

Researchers reviewed 72 studies that used citizen science — data collection by trained volunteers rather than professional scientists — to monitor surface water quality, evaluating the methods used and the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. The review highlights citizen science as a valuable complement to traditional water monitoring, particularly for expanding geographic and temporal coverage of data collection.

Citizen science has become a widely used approach in water quality studies. Although there are literature reviews about citizen science and water quality assessments, an overview of the most commonly used methods and their strengths and weaknesses is still lacking. Therefore, we reviewed the scientific literature on citizen science for surface water quality assessments and examined the methods and strategies used by the 72 studies that fulfilled our search criteria. Special attention was given to the parameters monitored, the monitoring tools, and the spatial and temporal resolution of the data collected in these studies. In addition, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches used in water quality assessments and their potential to complement traditional hydrological monitoring and research.

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