Theses and Dissertations Collection

When citizen scientists conduct water quality monitoring, the results can include better educated communities, increased local political participation, and an increased breadth in the geospatial and temporal range of the sampling campaigns. Unfortunately, the value of data collected by citizen scientists is often criticized as being inaccurate and unreliable. To address these criticisms, it is necessary to quantify volunteer accuracy using different tools and data collection strategies. The first chapter of this thesis reviews current citizen science literature and introduces the following two chapters, which focus on tool selection for citizen science monitoring. In the second chapter of this thesis evaluates the capacity of citizen scientists to gather accurate nitrate data. Specifically, this research focused on the quantification of Hach © nitrate test strips, which volunteers analyzed visually or using a cell phone app. The objective of this work was to compare the accuracy of the two quantification methods. The objective of the final chapter is to review the literature and identify the potential for citizen science research methods to contribute to environmental monitoring efforts through the collection of biologic tissues.