A comparison between professionally (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) and volunteer (Florida LAKEWATCH) collected trophic state chemistry data in Florida

Monitoring by citizen scientists demonstrates water clarity of Maine (USA) lakes is stable, not declining, due to cultural eutrophication

“…The value of using citizen scientists in all types of monitoring programs has recently been recognized (Silvertown 2009), and the Maine program has provided information on a large number of lakes in which people are interested enough to sample on a regular basis in the summer. Information generated by citizens has proved comparable to that produced by professionals (Obrecht et al 1998, Canfield et al 2002, Hoyer et al 2012, and, in the case of volunteer field measurements of Secchi depths, the data are much more precise than those for satellite-inferred depths. The citizen scientists have provided multiple samples during the summer and, through their dedication, decades of yearly data on many lakes.…”

The Accuracy of Citizen Science Data: A Quantitative Review

“…) and others that volunteers’ performance is comparable to that of professionals or scientists (Hoyer et al. , , Canfield et al. , Oldekop et al.…”

Usability of Existing Volunteer Water Monitoring Data: What Can the Literature Tell Us?

“…The continued growth of volunteer water monitoring programs is also tied to the actual or perceived impacts on the citizen scientists themselves. The global and shared nature of water management necessarily involves numerous stakeholders and members of the public in policy and decision making, and many studies have noted the benefits of involving local citizens in the monitoring of their own water resources (Penrose and Call 1995;Canfield et al 2002;Nicholson et al 2002;Loperfido et al 2010;Hoyer et al 2012). In the US, the White House office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued in 2015 a memorandum to the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies titled "Addressing Societal and Scientific Challenges through Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing" (CS Inventory website).…”

“…Many of these groups have been collecting water quality sampling data such as dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, and conductivity for decades, and have generated continuous, long-term databases that often cover large regions, watersheds, or states. Long-term water monitoring datasets such as these can be useful in providing baseline information for streams and lakes for flagging further sampling needs, and/or providing evidence for impacts of land-use change or climate change (Nicholson et al 2002;Loperfido et al 2010;Hoyer et al 2012;Storey et al 2016). However, although many potentially valuable datasets already exist, they are rarely used.…”

“…However, although many potentially valuable datasets already exist, they are rarely used. This lack of use often results from concerns about the accuracy of volunteer-collected data (Canfield et al 2002;Nicholson et al 2002;Hoyer et al 2012;Stepenuck 2013;Barrows et al 2016;Safford and Peters 2017).…”