**Public Involvement as an Element in Designing Environmental Monitoring Programs**

William T. Hartwell1 and David S. Shafer2

*1Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Nevada System of Higher Education 2Office of Legacy Management, United States Department of Energy, USA* 

#### **1. Introduction**

168 Environmental Monitoring

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monitoring, *Proceedings of 5th international conference on energy, environment, ecosystem and sustainable development*, pp.176-184, ISSN 1790-5095, ISBN 978-960-474-

cadmium contamination in poultry. *The proceedings of 9th Asia Pacific Poultry*

investigation for an epidemiological study on cadmium contamination of wildlife – Cadmium distribution in the rat body after intravenous cadmium exposure, *Proceedings of 5th international conference on energy, environment, ecosystem and sustainable development*, pp. 57-63,ISSN 1790-5095, ISBN 978-960-474-125-0, Athens, The monitoring of various environmental parameters may occur for a wide variety of reasons in numerous venues and at scales both large and small. Significant advances in the realms of data collection and communication technologies, as well as advances in remote sensing, have resulted in the ability to collect, transmit, analyze, manage, and disseminate environmental monitoring data at a scale little imagined only a couple of decades ago. These advances have also significantly increased the opportunities and means by which the public can contribute to environmental monitoring.

Some types of environmental monitoring may be targeted at short and long-term observations of changes in ecological systems that are the result of natural processes and their effects, and do not come under significant public scrutiny. However, quite the opposite is true for monitoring of potential effects of various anthropogenic media, especially with regards to their impact on the safety and health of human receptors and associated ecosystems. Members of the public may view the results of such monitoring with suspicion, especially if collected by government agencies or other organizations that could be perceived as having either caused a situation which requires monitoring, or who have a vested interest in the results of the monitoring. Suspicion among the public about radiation monitoring was a major contributing factor to how the "Community Environmental Monitoring Program," discussed later in this chapter, was designed. However, even monitoring of natural phenomena can have critics. Challenges exist in involving the public in environmental monitoring for environmental changes that may be a result of global issues such as climate change (IceWatch Canada and Project BudBurst are described in this chapter if the issues are viewed by some members of the public as being of ideological or political creation. Alternatively, with issues such as climate change, some people feel that the problems are so big that their contributions in measuring the effects of it, or reducing activities that contribute to it, will make no difference (e.g., Norgaard 2006).

Members of the public are often more than willing to participate in environmental monitoring, particularly when they and their own communities have a personal stake in the results or when the monitoring process itself provides tangible benefits. However, sometimes the public does not immediately accept the notion that a monitoring program will have benefits. In fact, there are examples where they have, at least initially, concluded that it would have only

Public Involvement as an Element in Designing Environmental Monitoring Programs 171

(http://www.aavso.org/, accessed July 2011). Amateur astronomers also produce a number of regular discoveries of new comets and asteroids that are added to databases of programs (e.g., the Spaceguard Center in the UK: http://spaceguarduk.com/, accessed July 2011) that

There is a growing recognition amongst scientists and those in environmental communication that the establishment of meaningful partnerships with the public and the identification of significant participatory roles for those who are willing to take on associated responsibilities can help facilitate the communication that occurs between interested, concerned citizens and corporations or agencies and the scientists who perform research or monitoring tasks for them (Groffman et al., 2010; Shneider & Snieder 2011; Shafer & Hartwell, 2011, in press). This is especially true in cases where constituents in the media being monitored are anthropogenic in origin and have the potential, either real or

Willingness and interest on the part of citizens to pursue involvement in environmental monitoring may be driven by simple curiosity or, as mentioned above, by concern or fear surrounding the monitored media's potential to inflict harm and/or distrust of the agency or corporation responsible for conducting the monitoring activity. Regardless of the reason, it behoves the scientific community to take advantage of this interest in the name of cultivating a stronger association with the public whose tax dollars often fund the majority of scientific research that occurs in most countries, and whose sometimes heightened perception of risk of a planned activity can often bring a project to a screeching halt, or at least a significant delay. Providing the public with a greater role than the minimum required by legislative regulation can result in the measurer's recognition as a show of good faith, as well as an opportunity to provide a greater public understanding of monitoring and associated activities, and can produce a network of citizens who not only develop a personal ownership in the project or process, but who also become informal communicators in their

The degree to which the public may participate most successfully in a project will likely be determined by such factors as public visibility of the project, funding, study length, geographical extent, and especially the willingness of those responsible for the operation of a given project to include and define roles for the public that will be of mutual interest and benefit to everyone involved. For purposes of discussion, we separate public participation into two categories: passive and active. Several brief examples of passive participatory

The arrival over the last decade or so of new information technologies is one of the most significant factors driving greater opportunities for public involvement in scientific monitoring and research endeavours (Kim, 2011; Silvertown, 2009). The realization of personal computers in most homes in developed and developing nations, coupled with the advent of email, the internet, the World Wide Web, and cellular "smart" phones and their associated applications (or "apps") have changed the manner and speed with which data can be gathered, transmitted, accessed, analyzed, and reported. While these innovations have made major contributions to all levels of public involvement, they have leant

programs are given, with discussion focusing on active public participation.

themselves particularly well to what we refer to as "passive" participation.

monitor the skies for near-Earth objects that may one day threaten the planet.

perceived, to inflict harm upon human communities and associated ecosystems.

communities as we shall see in some later examples.

**3. Degree of participation** 

**3.1 Passive participation projects** 

resulted in expenses for them. For example, Mori et al. (2005) describes a program of identifying and mitigating landslides in the Republic of Armenia in which it was hoped that the citizens of rural areas could help identify landslide-prone areas too small to be delineated by remote imagery. A key in making the program successful was investing time with people in towns prone to landslides, showing them how recognizing landslide hazards and implementing mitigating measures could help them avoid breakage of waterlines, damage to foundations of homes, and loss of cropland which the people had incurred great cost in time and money in developing. Simply talking about economic impacts of landslides at a national level was of no interest to people at a local level, and even created suspicion that the project was being undertaken to prevent people from freely using their land. The program in Armenia is just one example of how monitoring programs which effectively incorporate significant roles for the public can have a profound effect on the willingness of stakeholders to accept monitoring results, can result in better communication efforts, improve program transparency, and can actually result in a reduction in program costs in some scenarios. However, for these results to come about, the design of the monitoring program must carefully examine how the public perceives the subject, and how they will participate or contribute to the program.

This chapter will discuss the benefits, as well as potential pitfalls, of significant levels of public involvement in environmental monitoring programs. It will highlight mechanisms for designing, implementing, and maintaining viable monitoring programs with significant public components, and provide several real-world examples of programs that are highly inclusive of public stakeholders. Examples will be provided of environmental monitoring that concerns public and ecologic health, emergency response, as well as improved understanding of environmental processes or phenomena. The chapter will also highlight technological advances that have made public participation and transparency much easier to accomplish than in the past.

### **2. The citizen as scientist**

There is a long history of public participation in environmental monitoring and other scientific endeavours. These "citizen scientists" (e.g., Bonney & LaBranche, 2004) have contributed greatly to several scientific bodies of knowledge by providing large, mainly volunteer constituencies, often comprised mostly of individuals without any formal science education or training, who nevertheless are able to carry out various forms of data collection and reporting that might otherwise be difficult or impossible for reasons of funding, time, or geographic distribution, among others. One of the best examples of a longterm monitoring program with significant public involvement is the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count, which has been ongoing for 111 years (http://birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count, accessed July 2011). From humble beginnings in the year 1900, when twenty-seven individuals took part in the first bird count, the project now includes tens of thousands of participants in more than 15 countries who monitor bird populations and distributions between December 14th and January 5th annually, and enter their results in an online database. Other ornithological research projects have adopted the citizen science model for more regional scale studies (e.g., McCaffrey, 2005). Another area of science that has long embraced citizen scientists is the astronomy community. The 20-millionth observation of a variable star was made by an amateur astronomer in February 2011 as part of a citizen science program that is in its 100th year (http://www.aavso.org/, accessed July 2011). Amateur astronomers also produce a number of regular discoveries of new comets and asteroids that are added to databases of programs (e.g., the Spaceguard Center in the UK: http://spaceguarduk.com/, accessed July 2011) that monitor the skies for near-Earth objects that may one day threaten the planet.

There is a growing recognition amongst scientists and those in environmental communication that the establishment of meaningful partnerships with the public and the identification of significant participatory roles for those who are willing to take on associated responsibilities can help facilitate the communication that occurs between interested, concerned citizens and corporations or agencies and the scientists who perform research or monitoring tasks for them (Groffman et al., 2010; Shneider & Snieder 2011; Shafer & Hartwell, 2011, in press). This is especially true in cases where constituents in the media being monitored are anthropogenic in origin and have the potential, either real or perceived, to inflict harm upon human communities and associated ecosystems.

Willingness and interest on the part of citizens to pursue involvement in environmental monitoring may be driven by simple curiosity or, as mentioned above, by concern or fear surrounding the monitored media's potential to inflict harm and/or distrust of the agency or corporation responsible for conducting the monitoring activity. Regardless of the reason, it behoves the scientific community to take advantage of this interest in the name of cultivating a stronger association with the public whose tax dollars often fund the majority of scientific research that occurs in most countries, and whose sometimes heightened perception of risk of a planned activity can often bring a project to a screeching halt, or at least a significant delay. Providing the public with a greater role than the minimum required by legislative regulation can result in the measurer's recognition as a show of good faith, as well as an opportunity to provide a greater public understanding of monitoring and associated activities, and can produce a network of citizens who not only develop a personal ownership in the project or process, but who also become informal communicators in their communities as we shall see in some later examples.
