Roger P. Owen¹ and Alison J. Parker

¹ Scottish Environment Protection Agency

corresponding author email: roger.owen@sepa.org.uk

In: Hecker, S., Haklay, M., Bowser, A., Makuch, Z., Vogel, J. & Bonn, A. 2018. Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy. UCL Press, London. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787352339

Highlights

• Environmental protection agencies (EPAs) in Europe and the United States are increasingly making use of citizen science for environmental protection, including engaging the public and awareness-raising, empowering action by communities, monitoring and data collection, and providing sound evidence on which to make decisions.

• To increase the impact of citizen science for environmental protection, improvements are needed in data management and infrastructure support, communication of data quality, sensor development and communication with citizen science data providers.

• Innovations in technology and organisational practices are enabling a citizen-agency dialogue based on good data and feedback on use of evidence. Citizen science has the potential to transform environmental protection by inviting the public to work with agencies to generate knowledge and find solutions.

• Effective case studies include citizen scientists acting as an agency's ‘eyes and ears’ (see box 20.2, Improving the effectiveness of sentinel systems: Irish Environmental Protection Agency) in addressing local environmental matters, including identifying environmental concerns for additional research and action (see box 20.3, Regulatory action spurred by citizen science: The Clean Air Coalition of Western New York and Tonawanda Coke Corporation); Promoting environmental education in schools (see box 20.4, The Envirόza school programme); and further legitimising the high-level strategic delivery of a responsible authority's environmental protection mandate (see box 20.1, From Opportunism to a Strategic Approach: Scottish Environment Protection Agency [SEPA]).