Natural waterways form an integral part of the urban and rural environment. In New Zealand, their uses are generally related to agriculture, drainage, power generation and recreation, but their value also extends to providing ecological services that are vital to the maintenance of a fully functioning environment. In the areas of the world that are considered to be developed, several functions and services that waterway systems initially would have provided, have been degraded, or lost completely, due to water abstractions, altered flow regimes and input of pollutants. In New Zealand, and around the world, groups of volunteers give up their time in order to help monitor the quality and state of waterways. However, there remains a distrust of data generated by such groups throughout the scientific community. This concern is also voiced by members of these groups, querying what the point of their monitoring is, if the data has no real use. As a result of this uncertainty about the data quality and its subsequent uses, data is often just entered onto a database with little, or no, analysis conducted. The purpose of this research was to ascertain the quality of the data generated by volunteers groups in New Zealand by comparing it with data collected by professionals from city and regional councils. Volunteer monitoring methods and tools were also compared with those available to professionals in order to determine if any differences observed were a product of equipment, or other factors. However, data generation is not the only purpose of these volunteer groups. By being involved, volunteers are gaining education, practical skills and knowledge they may not have access to otherwise, and they are meeting people and strengthening community ties. Volunteers from each group therefore also completed a survey to determine their knowledge of the programme they participate in, of the environment and freshwater, and to collect some basic background information. The Styx Living Laboratory Trust (SLLT) in Christchurch, the Wakapuaka Rivercare Group in Nelson and Wai Care in Auckland were the three New Zealand community water monitoring groups chosen to be the subject of this study. Generally, the volunteer conductivity and pH data was significantly different from that of their professional counterparts, with large differences obvious in the data sets from all three groups. Water temperature was the only variable that was consistently similar for volunteer and professional data. Comparison of the SLLT’s methods with professional-level methods, however, revealed that differences in the data sets may be due to a combination of factors including equipment (e.g., use of pH colour strips instead of meters), and variation in the monitoring protocols, rather than a lack of quality in the volunteer data. However, new dissolved oxygen and nitrogen monitoring methods utilised by Wai Care did produce some promising results, with some of the comparisons unable to be statistically differentiated from the professional data set. Visual assessment of the SLLT data over time suggests seasonal patterns in pH and conductivity, and possible increases in water clarity over time. Statistical analysis of the individual variables of pH, water temperature, clarity and conductivity, in the SLLT data revealed several significant predictors and interactions, including time, date and pH among other things. However, the very small effect size and the large data set suggest this may just be a product of the large data set with very few of these variable interactions having any real meaning with regards to management. Volunteers were predominantly over the age of 40, and were generally either very new recruits to their monitoring programmes (<6 months) or had been involved for a reasonably long time (>5 years). There were differing patterns of involvement between the groups with the WRG having volunteers mainly involved for >10 years while the SLLT had a large number of new recruits. There were also varying reasons volunteers chose to become involved however, the predominant reason was concern for the environment. Approximately half of the volunteers surveyed proved to be very knowledgeable about their programme and understood the purposes of the monitoring programme, although most were associated with a science-related industry and therefore likely already had this knowledge. More education and training would be needed to bring all of the other volunteers up to this level. All volunteers had good knowledge of issues in New Zealand’s environment and freshwater currently face, with public apathy considered the most pressing issue. In summary, despite the lack of clear statistical similarities between volunteer and professional data sets for some variables, the data do not appear to be randomly inaccurate and could be corrected to be combined with professional data. The benefits the volunteers gain appear to outweigh any issues that may be present in the data, as long as the volunteers perceive the data to be ultimately useful. Volunteer-based water quality monitoring has proved to be a valuable way to gather environmental data, educate the community and improve their commitment to local waterways.

A gestão dos recursos hídricos do Brasil é relevante para o setor público, mas há um reconhecimento crescente de que as ferramentas tradicionais reguladoras não são suficientes para garantir a proteção da água minimizando os impactos antrópicos. Visando auxiliar na resolução deste problema, a legislação prevê a participação das comunidades em várias etapas do processo de gestão de recursos hídricos. Neste contexto, este estudo, realizado na APA Embu Verde localizada no Município de Embu das Artes na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo, avalia a implantação de um programa de monitoramento participativo, por meio de entrevistas, observação participante, questionários e grupo focal, considerando os níveis de Aprendizagem Social dos atores após a participação no referido programa e aplicação de uma ferramenta simplificada de biomonitoramento para voluntários. Com relação à Aprendizagem social, os voluntários atingiram os níveis de circuito simples e duplo, indicando que os processos de participação colaboram para a aquisição de conhecimentos sobre técnicas, métodos e meio físico. No entanto, não foi identificado o circuito de Aprendizagem tripla, correspondente à mobilização para a ação e solução dos problemas identificados, dado a complexidade dos mesmos. Os dados gerados pela ferramenta de biomonitoramento apresentaram resultados bastante próximos aos gerados por técnicas mais sofisticadas realizadas por especialistas, apresentando dificuldade apenas em distinguir ambientes de impactos intermediários. Além disso, o índice de voluntários apresenta caráter conservador, apontando que é mais provável que baixe a qualidade do local do que a superestime, evitando que impactos iniciais não sejam constatados. Sendo assim a prática de monitoramento participativo foi considerada uma boa ferramenta para potencializar o processo de Aprendizagem Social e levantar dados sobre a qualidade da água em riachos. / The Brazil\'s water resources management is relevant to the public sector but there is a growing recognition that the traditional regulatory tools are not enough to ensure the protection of water minimizing the anthropic impacts. In order to solve this problem, the legislation expects the participation of the communitie in several stages of the water resource management. In this context, this research performed by APA Embu Verde located in Embu das Artes, (the metropolitan area of São Paulo) rates the implantation of a participatory monitoring program by interviewing people, participant observation, questionnaires and focus group considering the level of social learning from the actors after their participation in the program and the application of a simplified tool of biomonitoring for the volunteers. Regarding the social learning, the volunteers reached the levels of Single loop learning and Double loop learning indicating that the processes of participation collaborate for the acquisition of knowledge about techniques, methods and physical means. However, the circuit of triple - loop learning has not been identified given the complexity of them. The data generated by the tool of biomonitoring, showed results very near those generated by more sophisticated techniquesperformed by experts presenting only difficulty in distinguishing environments intermediate impacts. In addition to that, the index of volunteers presents conservative character indicating that the quality of the site goes down, preventing initial impacts to be observed. Therefore, the practice of participatory monitoring was considered a good tool to enhance the social learning process and to assess water quality in streams.

A gestão dos recursos hídricos do Brasil é relevante para o setor público, mas há um reconhecimento crescente de que as ferramentas tradicionais reguladoras não são suficientes para garantir a proteção da água minimizando os impactos antrópicos. Visando auxiliar na resolução deste problema, a legislação prevê a participação das comunidades em várias etapas do processo de gestão de recursos hídricos. Neste contexto, este estudo, realizado na APA Embu Verde localizada no Município de Embu das Artes na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo, avalia a implantação de um programa de monitoramento participativo, por meio de entrevistas, observação participante, questionários e grupo focal, considerando os níveis de Aprendizagem Social dos atores após a participação no referido programa e aplicação de uma ferramenta simplificada de biomonitoramento para voluntários. Com relação à Aprendizagem social, os voluntários atingiram os níveis de circuito simples e duplo, indicando que os processos de participação colaboram para a aquisição de conhecimentos sobre técnicas, métodos e meio físico. No entanto, não foi identificado o circuito de Aprendizagem tripla, correspondente à mobilização para a ação e solução dos problemas identificados, dado a complexidade dos mesmos. Os dados gerados pela ferramenta de biomonitoramento apresentaram resultados bastante próximos aos gerados por técnicas mais sofisticadas realizadas por especialistas, apresentando dificuldade apenas em distinguir ambientes de impactos intermediários. Além disso, o índice de voluntários apresenta caráter conservador, apontando que é mais provável que baixe a qualidade do local do que a superestime, evitando que impactos iniciais não sejam constatados. Sendo assim a prática de monitoramento participativo foi considerada uma boa ferramenta para potencializar o processo de Aprendizagem Social e levantar dados sobre a qualidade da água em riachos. / The Brazil\'s water resources management is relevant to the public sector but there is a growing recognition that the traditional regulatory tools are not enough to ensure the protection of water minimizing the anthropic impacts. In order to solve this problem, the legislation expects the participation of the communitie in several stages of the water resource management. In this context, this research performed by APA Embu Verde located in Embu das Artes, (the metropolitan area of São Paulo) rates the implantation of a participatory monitoring program by interviewing people, participant observation, questionnaires and focus group considering the level of social learning from the actors after their participation in the program and the application of a simplified tool of biomonitoring for the volunteers. Regarding the social learning, the volunteers reached the levels of Single loop learning and Double loop learning indicating that the processes of participation collaborate for the acquisition of knowledge about techniques, methods and physical means. However, the circuit of triple - loop learning has not been identified given the complexity of them. The data generated by the tool of biomonitoring, showed results very near those generated by more sophisticated techniquesperformed by experts presenting only difficulty in distinguishing environments intermediate impacts. In addition to that, the index of volunteers presents conservative character indicating that the quality of the site goes down, preventing initial impacts to be observed. Therefore, the practice of participatory monitoring was considered a good tool to enhance the social learning process and to assess water quality in streams.

The Texas Stream Team (TST) is one of an increasing number of citizen science water monitoring programs throughout the US which have been continuously collecting surface water quality data under quality assurance protocols for decades. Volunteer monitoring efforts have generated monitoring datasets that are long-term, continuous, and cover a large geographic area - characteristics shown to be valuable for scientists and professional agencies. However, citizen science data has been of limited use to researchers due to concerns about the accuracy of data collected by volunteers, and the decades of water quality monitoring data collected by TST volunteers is not widely used, if at all. A growing body of studies have attempted to address accuracy concerns by comparing volunteer data to professional data, but this has rarely been done with large-scale, existing datasets like those collected by TST. This study assesses the accuracy of the volunteer water quality data collected across the state of Texas by the TST citizen science program between 1992-2017 by comparing it to professional data from corresponding stations during the same time period, as well as comparing existing and experimental data from a local TST partner agency. The results indicate that even large-scale, existing volunteer and professional data with unpaired samples that may have been taken months apart can show statewide agreement of 80% for all parameters (DO = 77%, pH = 79%, conductivity = 85%) over the 38 years of sampling included in the analyses, across all locations. The local case study using paired datasets for which a greater number of factors were controlled for show an even higher agreement between volunteers and professionals (DO = 91%, pH = 87%, conductivity = 100%) and show no significant difference between experimental and existing sampling data. The results from this study indicate that TST has been collecting water sampling data for decades that is comparable to professional data and provides compelling evidence for researchers and managers to better utilize TST's and other large-scale monitoring datasets already in existence from similar citizen science water monitoring programs across the country.