The aim of this PhD position is to determine how citizen science can be best engaged to contribute to water quality monitoring and protection.
The objectives include:
- Investigate who does citizen science (CS) and why? Compare and contrast perspectives of the local community, NGOs, and other groups engaging in water improvement projects with and without CS
- Evaluate how reliable CS data are for monitoring and assessment and quality control mechanisms based on existing and new data collections
- Identify gaps that can be filled by citizen science
- Develop a CS-based toolkit for identifying pressures at local and catchment scales
- Evaluate existing and new frameworks for sustained CS projects
The project will be supervised by Mary Kelly-Quinn (University College Dublin), Jan-Robert Baars (University College Dublin) and co-supervised by Gabriele Weigelhofer (WasserCluster, Lunz, Austria).
The advisors for the PhD research include Per-Erik Mellander (Teagasc, Republic of Ireland), Alena Bartosova (SMHI, Sweden) and Eulyn Pagaling (James Hutton Institute, UK).
The position duration is <3 years (with an additional year if required). You will be based in the School of Biology & Environmental Science, University College Dublin, located in Dublin, Ireland.
