Citizen science programs have popped up across the United States, focusing on connecting local communities with nearby water resources and building a trustworthy data pool over the sampling period. While commonly utilized as a means of ensuring that large watersheds or lake regions are adequately sampled, the credibility and success of such programs have been called into question.
Max Herzog, Deputy Director of Programs and Partnerships with the Cleveland Water Alliance (CWA), oversees the Lake Erie Volunteer Science Network (LEVSN) and knows all too well how citizen science initiatives are viewed.
In particular, LEVSN being a regional initiative of Lake Erie non-profits and semi-governmental organizations, naysayers believed that the program couldn’t collect meaningful and actionable data about water resources.
“The goal of LEVSN was really to figure out what it would mean for these very locally focused groups to collaborate at the regional level, and if that was something that was possible,” states Herzog.
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