Goals and approaches in the use of citizen science for exploring plastic pollution in freshwater ecosystems: A review

Abstract

The role of citizen science in environmental monitoring has received interest in the research community over the last decade, with citizen scientists playing a key role in engaging with and gathering scientific evidence to support natural resource management. Likewise, the involvement of citizen science in aquatic research is growing. One area of aquatic research where there has been successful application of citizen science is in support of plastic-pollution research. Plastic-pollution research benefits from support by citizen scientists both because of the ubiquity of plastic within our environments, requiring data to be collected from a wide geographical area, and because of the need for systemic behavior change at both individual and societal levels. Recent studies highlight citizen science contributions to plastic-pollution research within marine systems, but our knowledge is limited about how citizen science can support limnetic plastic-pollution research, with no known published systematic reviews. The involvement of citizen science within freshwater monitoring has been widely discussed, but most peer-reviewed literature focuses on commonly targeted water-quality parameters (e.g., nutrients). This is not surprising given that freshwater plastic waste is a newly emerging field of interest; thus, the support of citizen science in this research area is only just beginning. This review is the 1st to explore the status of freshwater citizen science focused on plastic pollution. Based on a synthesis of 12 peer-reviewed publications, we considered the environmental and geographic extent of the research, research scope, methods, involvement of citizen science, and data quality. We also discuss how citizen science can contribute to emerging issues in freshwater science. Through our review we found that the use of citizen science within the field of freshwater plastic-pollution research remains rare, with most projects following the contributory model of citizen participation. Additionally, methods and standardized approaches for citizen recruitment, engagement, and training were limited in the peer-reviewed literature. Greater transparency of methods and approaches used will be key to opening up the potential for citizen science within this evolving research field. This review can be used as a starting point for researchers to develop their own freshwater plastic-waste monitoring programs involving citizen scientists.