Citizen science water projects in Nepal: Participant motivations and the impacts of involvement

Abstract

Citizen science is blossoming in the water sciences and benefits to the scientific community are well reported. The experiences of involved citizens are less well researched, however, particularly in the Global South. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated the participant motivations of citizen science water projects in Nepal and the benefits and negative impacts of involvement. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were utilised with 74 participants and 15 project organisers, mainly from 5 projects. Participant responses yielded evidence of most of the commonly reported potential benefits of involvement in citizen science, including knowledge gain, increased scientific literacy, and empowerment. Not all benefits were experienced by all participants, however, and there was evidence – albeit minimal – of negative impacts, with some participants reporting the net effect of involvement as being burdensome or disappointing. Participant motivations matched those typically observed among Global North citizen scientists; most commonly, contributing to scientific research, having the opportunity to learn, and helping the community. While this study indicated that involvement in the investigated projects was mostly beneficial, further Global South citizen scientist assessments are needed to enable benefits to be maximised, negative impacts to be avoided, and motivations to be understood for improved participant targeting and retention.

Keywords

• : citizen science
• global south
• water resources
• water quality
• disaster risk reduction
• participant assessment
• nepal