Distance Matters in Citizen-Based Water Quality Monitoring

Water pollution remains a critical global challenge, threatening public health and aquatic ecosystems. Governmental efforts to monitor and manage water resources often face limitations due to constrained resources and socio-political priorities that may not prioritize sustainable solutions. Citizen science has emerged as a promising approach, engaging communities in scientific research to expand data collection capabilities and foster environmental stewardship. This paper explores the role of distributed collaboration infrastructure, exemplified by the Water Data Collaborative (WDC), in connecting and enhancing citizen-based water quality monitoring groups across North America. Through participatory design sessions with WDC users, the study identifies essential design features needed to support collaboration and address common challenges such as data standardization and resource sharing. Our findings emphasize the complexity of relationships among citizen science groups, government entities, and higher-order organizations, emphasizing the need for scalable, integrated solutions that avoid creating new silos within the ecosystem. This research contributes insights into how CSCW and HCI can facilitate effective citizen science practices and infrastructure design to advance sustainable water management.