Mackechnie Colin, Maskell Lindsay, Norton Lisa, Roy David
Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Wallingford, OX10 8BB, UK.
J Environ Monit. 2011 Oct;13(10):2687-91. doi: 10.1039/c1em10615e. Epub 2011 Aug 30.
Environmental monitoring is essential for assessing the current state of the environment, measuring impacts of environmental pressures and providing evidence to government. Recent UK government announcements have indicated an increased role for 'Big Society' in monitoring. In this paper, we review available literature concerning the use of citizen science for monitoring, present examples of successful volunteer monitoring work and highlight important issues surrounding the use of volunteers. We argue that in order to ensure that environmental monitoring continues to be effective it is important to learn from examples where volunteers are currently used, acknowledging constraints and identifying potential approaches which will help to maximise both their engagement and data quality. Effective partnerships between environmental monitoring organisations and volunteers may thus aid the UK in developing robust coordinated monitoring systems that will be less vulnerable to funding variances.
环境监测对于评估当前环境状况、衡量环境压力的影响以及向政府提供证据至关重要。英国政府近期发布的公告表明，“大社会”在监测中的作用有所增强。在本文中，我们回顾了有关利用公民科学进行监测的现有文献，列举了成功的志愿者监测工作实例，并强调了围绕志愿者使用的重要问题。我们认为，为确保环境监测持续有效，借鉴当前使用志愿者的实例、认识到限制因素并确定有助于最大限度提高志愿者参与度和数据质量的潜在方法非常重要。环境监测组织与志愿者之间的有效合作关系可能有助于英国建立强大的协调监测系统，使其更不易受到资金波动的影响。
