State, Tribal, Local Citizen Science Forwards Environmental Protection

摘要

Anew ELI report highlights the important role that citizen science can play in state, tribal, and local environmental protection programs. Data collection by the public for use in scientific tasks has proliferated in recent years, supported by NGOs, universities, and government at all levels.The information includes observations about environmental conditions and natural resources - and ranges from water and air quality monitoring to bird counts to coyote scat samplings (to determine what urban coyotes eat). And, the volume of data is impressive - Cornell University's e-Bird project receives more than 100 million bird sighting reports from citizens annually. The ELI study, prepared for EPA, is the first effort to look at subnational and tribal governments' citizen science initiatives. The research examines 15 pollution control projects to discern key features and best practices.