Abstract
Since 2001, trained snorkelers, freedivers, and scuba diver volunteers (collectively called EcoDivers) have been recording data on the distribution, abundance, and bathymetric range of 43 selected key marine species along the Mediterranean Sea coasts using the Reef Check Mediterranean Underwater Coastal Environment Monitoring (RCMed U-CEM) protocol. The taxa, including algae, invertebrates, and fishes, were selected by a combination of criteria, including ease of identification and being a key indicator of shifts in the Mediterranean subtidal habitats due to local pressures and climate change. The dataset collected using the RCMed U-CEM protocol is openly accessible across different platforms and allows for various uses. It has proven to be useful for several purposes, such as monitoring the ecological status of Mediterranean coastal environments, assessing the effects of human impacts and management interventions, as well as complementing scientific papers on species distribution and abundance, distribution modeling, and historical series. Also, the commitment of volunteers promotes marine stewardship and environmental awareness in marine conservation. Here, we describe the RCMed U-CEM protocol from training volunteers to recording, delivering, and sharing data, including the quality assurance and control (QA/QC) procedures.
Highlights
Community-based environmental monitoring is a participatory approach engaging volunteers through citizen science (CS) programs to enhance the ability of decision-makers and non-government organizations to monitor and manage natural resources, track endangered species, and protect biodiversity (Conrad and Hilchey, 2011; Chandler et al, 2017)
Involving millions of people worldwide, Marine citizen science (MCS) programs are becoming increasingly important to conservation science by providing monitoring of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and functions and by influencing and improving the management of marine protected areas and fishery resources (Freiwald et al, 2018)
This disconnect is partly due to persisting skepticism about the reliability of data collected from volunteers (Burgess et al, 2017) and a co-creation approach in the supply and demand of environmental monitoring data that is still not well-integrated in CS processes (Bonney et al, 2015)
Summary
Community-based environmental monitoring is a participatory approach engaging volunteers through citizen science (CS) programs to enhance the ability of decision-makers and non-government organizations to monitor and manage natural resources, track endangered species, and protect biodiversity (Conrad and Hilchey, 2011; Chandler et al, 2017). Despite a worldwide increase in program number and extent of MCS (Thiel et al, 2014), the collected information is rarely used for institutional monitoring programs or to inform decision-making processes in marine conservation (Conrad and Hilchey, 2011) This disconnect is partly due to persisting skepticism about the reliability of data collected from volunteers (Burgess et al, 2017) and a co-creation approach in the supply and demand of environmental monitoring data that is still not well-integrated in CS processes (Bonney et al, 2015). The protocol is implemented, and the data are maintained by the non-profit organization Reef Check Italia onlus, collaborating with the other European Reef Check organizations, members of the worldwide Reef Check Foundation, and within the Reef Check Mediterranean Sea network
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