Watershed Monitoring: The Volunteer Monitor
There’s an incredible amount of citizen science being done by local groups, people who are involved in doing environmental research in their communities. I tend to not cover those groups much here; it feels, frankly, overwhelming…but I need to start, because the projects I usually post about here are really the tip of the iceberg.
One of the most impressive kinds of efforts is watershed monitoring. It’s a messy area — lots of local groups, government acronyms, and science mixed with political policy making. But this week’s oil spill disaster in the San Francsico Bay is a reminder that monitoring our waterways is an important step in protecting their ecologies. By understanding how the oil spill creates change in the ecosystem, we can better affect policy changes to prevent such damage in the future.
Your number one resource for information on water monitoring techniques and organizations is a venerable publication, The Volunteer Monitor. Available for free via PDF downloads or free print subscriptions, this carefully produced newsletter “…facilitates the exchange of ideas, monitoring methods, and practical advice among volunteer environmental monitoring groups across the nation.” It’s partially funded by the EPA, and the content of the newsletter is available for reprint (under modest guidelines) in your own publications….a great resource for local ecology-minded groups! The Volunteer Monitor has been published for almost 20 years; browse their index to back issues for a treasure trove of info, including things like:
- Making your own monitoring equipment
- Comparisons and discussions of techniques
- Informative and detailed how-to’s
- Tips for managing groups of volunteers
- Reports about groups doing interesting work
And much more. Anyone interested in citizen science will find interesting tidbits, anyone interested in watershed monitoring will find huge amounts of useful information.
