Can Citizen Science Promote Flood Risk Communication?

Wing Cheung,David Feldman

doi:10.3390/w11101961

Abstract

This article explores the challenges facing citizen science as a means of joining the efforts of scientists and flood-risk affected stakeholders in motivating citizen involvement in identifying and mitigating flood risks. While citizen science harbors many advantages, including a penchant for collaborative research and the ability to motivate those affected by floods to work with scientists in elucidating and averting risk, it is not without challenges in its implementation. These include ensuring that scientists are willing to share authority with amateur citizen scientists, providing forums that encourage debate, and encouraging equal voice in developing flood risk mitigation strategies. We assess these challenges by noting the limited application of citizen science to flood-relevant problems in existing research and recommend future research in this area to meaningfully incorporate a “re-imagined” citizen science process that is based on the participatory theoretical framework. We also discuss one case study where the principles of collaboration, debate, and equal voice were put into play in an effort to apply citizen science and—in the long term—mitigate flood hazards in one set of communities.

Highlights

Citizen science has been defined as “a process where concerned citizens, government agencies, industry, academia, community groups, and local institutions collaborate to monitor, track, and respond to issues of common community concern” [1] (p. 274)
It remains unclear if the benefits of citizen science as demonstrated in other domains can be expected in flood hazard research and whether citizen science can promote the two-way communication of flood knowledge between researchers and stakeholders, which is crucial in mitigating flood risk and enhancing flood resilience [11]
While household surveys and mapping exercises demonstrated the extent to which local residents were aware of local flood risk, the focus groups organized in flood-vulnerable coastal communities in Orange County, California and Tijuana, Mexico were utilized to compare and evaluate a series of flood hazard maps generated by researchers

Summary

Introduction

Citizen science has been defined as “a process where concerned citizens, government agencies, industry, academia, community groups, and local institutions collaborate to monitor, track, and respond to issues of common community (environmental) concern” [1] (p. 274). Researchers have suggested that citizen science can potentially trigger interest, raise awareness, and motivate greater citizen participation in flood risk management through engagement in explicit data collection [7,8]. The number of flood hazard studies that have meaningfully integrated citizen science based on the participatory theoretical framework is limited. It remains unclear if the benefits of citizen science as demonstrated in other domains can be expected in flood hazard research and whether citizen science can promote the two-way communication of flood knowledge between researchers and stakeholders, which is crucial in mitigating flood risk and enhancing flood resilience [11]. By analyzing existing citizen science activities through Fiorino’s (1990)

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Conclusion