Title
Citizen Science and Low-Cost Sensors for Integrated Water Resources Management
Date Issued
01 January 2018
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Imperial College London
Publisher(s)
Elsevier B.V.
Abstract
One of the principal objectives of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is to solve water and development problems using methods that are environmentally sustainable, socially equitable, and efficient. In this chapter, we demonstrate how the principles of citizen science—the intrinsic involvement of nonscientist local stakeholders throughout the entire life cycle of a project—have the potential to complement and benefit those of IWRM; in particular, in relation to creating scientific evidence that underpins the governance of water resources. The rapid, recent development of information and communication technologies such as the Internet, smartphones, and social media has already demonstrated their capacity to make knowledge creation and governance more multidirectional, decentralized, diverse, and inclusive. We show how such new technologies can be harnessed with a citizen science approach to interrogate different aspects of the water cycle. One particularly promising development is to support citizen science with robust and low-cost sensor and networking technology. Such networks offer not only improved data coverage (especially in remote or data-scarce regions) but also enhanced sustainability at a time when monitoring networks are in decline globally. We argue that, in certain cases, citizen science and polycentric governance approaches can enrich and complement IWRM and merit greater attention.
Start page
1
End page
33
Volume
3
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Oceanografía, Hidrología, Recursos hídricos
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85064857733
Source
Advances in Chemical Pollution, Environmental Management and Protection
ISSN of the container
24689289
Sponsor(s)
The research consortium to which the authors belong is funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and Department for International Development (DFID) as project NE/P000452/1 (Landslide EVO) under the Science for Humanitarian Emergencies and Resilience program. Natural Environment Research Council - NERC
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus