The Demographics of Citizen Science Participation and Its Implications for Data Quality and Environmental Justice

Charlie Blake,Allison Rhanor,Cody Pajic

doi:10.5334/cstp.320

Abstract

Citizen science programs have been growing in popularity in recent years and can provide various benefits to participants and their communities. We sought to determine whether these benefits are equitably accessible to all by examining potential demographic disparities in participation in our statewide citizen science program. We first explored whether Illinois RiverWatch participants are demographically and geographically representative of Illinois’s population. We conducted online surveys of current participants to gather information on demographics, including race, income, and education level, and then compared these responses with the population of Illinois as a whole using (US) census data. We also examined whether RiverWatch stream sites are disproportionately located in areas of low environmental justice concern, as determined by the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (US EPA’s) Environmental Justice screening tool. We used GIS to map all stream sites (n = 936) and determined whether they were located in areas of high or low environmental justice concern. The survey data indicate that RiverWatch participants are disproportionately white, highly educated, and affluent compared with the Illinois general population. In addition, we found RiverWatch sites tend to be located in areas of lower environmental justice concern, and that areas of high environmental justice concern are underrepresented. We discuss how disparities in demographics of participants can not only indicate need for improvement in the accessibility of a citizen science program but could also harm the quality of the river-monitoring data collected, as it leads to sampling that is not accurately representative.

Highlights

IntroductionCitizen science programs are helpful to scientists facing data-collection or data-processing challenges, but are beneficial for participants as a learning opportunity, as a way to build social networks, and as a path to increase capacity for environmental advocacy (Domroese and Johnson 2017; Jordan et al 2011)
Citizen science is a research model that often involves partnership between community members and accredited scientists to address a scientific question of mutual interest
We set out to examine how the issues of race, income, educational background, and environmental justice (EJ) may come into play in citizen science programs

Summary

Introduction

Citizen science programs are helpful to scientists facing data-collection or data-processing challenges, but are beneficial for participants as a learning opportunity, as a way to build social networks, and as a path to increase capacity for environmental advocacy (Domroese and Johnson 2017; Jordan et al 2011). These programs encourage increased communication and connection between academic institutions and communities (Dickinson et al 2010; Yacoubian 2018; Roger and K listorner 2016), and establishing this kind of two-way communication has the capacity to strengthen and enhance the abilities of both groups (Fischhoff and Scheufele 2019). This research has suggested that for many programs, participation is not reflective of the demographics of the population of potential participants but instead is concentrated among more privileged groups (Burgess et al 2017; Pandya 2012)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion