Center for Community and Citizen Science

Involving the public in watershed research and monitoring through a community and citizen science approach offers project funders and partners the opportunity to gather important data about target environmental parameters and build and sustain community engagement in watershed restoration. The UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science has developed this manual to guide groups in their planning and implementation of community and citizen science activities for dam removal and for river restoration more generally. This document is based on the experience of the authors and a wealth of academic publications and other literature, including resources from many other community and citizen science programs that have tackled challenges related to volunteer monitoring in watersheds. The manual includes guidance on: deciding whether community and citizen science is appropriate for your project, given your goals and context; how to build a team with the capacity to support the project, and identifying roles within that team; how to design a monitoring project while balancing scientific rigor, feasibility, and participation; details that arise with on-the-ground implementation; and how to sustain projects in the long term and ensure that their results are useful for the original goals of the project.