Identifying, developing and embedding citizen science techniques in action research to evaluate locally led solutions for water quality monitoring

Our NERC PATHWAYs project (NE/R003645/1) is part of a 3-year collaboration between the Department of Sciences and Technology (India) and the Natural Environmental Research Council (UK). The aim is to develop mathematical modelling to describe how pollution moves within a range of water environments (i.e. river, coastal, wetland) to inform appropriate waste management strategies. Current systems used by India's water authorities are based on outdated tools that do not adequately account for the quantity and dynamic behaviour of contaminants within these flow domains. This, coupled with increasing urbanisation is exerting immense pressure on city water utilities. As such, there is an urgency to acquire the necessary knowledge to better manage water quality with positive outcomes on water security for the Indian population and enhancement of the natural environment.
For a sustainable solution the strategies proposed must centre on local perspectives - facilitating local community uptake of actions driven by research results, wherein their values and priorities are embedded. Ultimately, this will both educate and empower local communities to take ownership of their environment. This aligns directly with the Indian National Framework Bill which acknowledges that there is an urgency to acquire such knowledge to meet ecological objectives. As such, it is vital that our research ensures emphasis is placed on not only the role of academic and scientific research but the networks to support the interface between research results and policy uptake/application.
India and the UK are priority countries for each other with a synergy between future water quality legislation and shared global sustainable development goals. As part of PATHWAYs we have developed strong in-country connections with several Indian stakeholders (Thane Pollution Control Board; Enviro-con Urban Hydro Environment Centre; Versova Beach Clean Up - Afroz Shah). More recently our community connections have expanded to include NGO Earth5R - one of the largest citizen-led environmental movements, founded by Saurabh Gupta. Earth5R is based in and works with a number of local communities living in the same region as our PATHWAYs river catchment; providing an existing channel for community participation. Earth5R has expressed a need to acquire scientific knowledge to develop the community's ability to use scientific approaches to generate the evidence base required to support change in water quality management.
Thames 21 are an environmental NGO operating in London, delivering environmental pollution management with communities and municipal stakeholders. This organisation is committed to supporting multidisciplinary approaches to catchment management and has expertise in community engagement and recruitment, nature-based pollution solutions and innovation knowledge transfer. We will work closely with Thames21 to help us guide the development of citizen science approaches that can be integrated into Earth5R's Mumbai based communities. The ultimate aim is to use citizen science to build capability into our India based communities that will simultaneously inform our PATHWAYs research as to the sources of pollution from a local perspective, thus target solutions, whilst simultaneously supporting the ongoing work led by Thames 21 and Earth5R.
These approaches include:
-Outfall safari's using community groups to identify pollution outfalls and score them based on their visible impact on the river environment.
-Innovative technology (i.e., INTCATCH boats; autonomous boats fitted with state-of-the-art water quality monitoring technologies) to engage communities in water quality.
-Story maps to synthesis scientific knowledge and community perspectives into an easily understandable framework.
-Visual science: using florescent harmless tracers to trace pollution in natural flows within managed river catchments to test community hypotheses on drainage connections.

Our NERC PATHWAYS project is committed to integrate the physical understanding of pollutant behaviour within a context-relevant socio-economic framework using appropriately applied technologies. This is necessary to identify/guide the development of key waste management strategies that support local livelihoods in a more sustainable way.
The PATHWAYS PDRA (Dr Sarah Cook) will work with the team at Thames 21 over the course of 3-weeks. The main objective of this visit will be to explore how our existing scientific techniques can be aligned with, and develop citizen science approaches (to monitor water quality). The specific methods to be explored include: outfall safaris, story maps & florescent dye tracing to track pollution movement.
Following from this Saurabh Gupta (co-founder of Earth5R) would be invited to visit the UK (one week) to meet with the Thames21 and Warwick teams. Here we will explore how we can integrate these refined citizen science approaches into local India based community action. This will support Earth5R and generate the data required to inform our PATHWAYs research about local perspectives on water quality. The UK visit will also provide the opportunity to develop visual educational content for Earth5R; sharing actual field experiences from our UK based citizen science groups and experts to reinforce the universal water challenges faced by both the UK and India, and the need to support one another in this common goal. Part of this collaborative visit will involve a one-day knowledge transfer workshop (facilitated by Ant Parsons; ALP Synergy) at the University of Warwick. The aim will be to bring together researchers from a variety of different disciplines to discuss how to use citizen science to improve the value of research and integrate it into research design. We will reach out to researchers in several groups including: Sustainable Cites and Warwick Water (engineering groups) and multidisciplinary groups on Sustainable Development.

Our NERC PATHWAYS project is in line with the draft Indian National Water Framework Bill, 2016 and is committed to improve fundamental understanding of pathways and evolution of pollutants. Through PATHWAYS we have developed a strong and broad network of in-country Indian contacts including citizen led environmental organisations (Saurabh Gupta from Earth5R), movements (Afroz Shah from The Versova Beach Clean Up) and government agencies (Thane Pollution Control board). All groups have expressed an urgency in developing citizen science techniques to provide the evidence needed for engagement with Governmental decision makers and stakeholders to drive policy and effective regulation in delivering a safe water environment. As such, with appropriate citizen science development, the PATHWAYs project has the potential to generate the new data and knowledge required to inform decision making in support of long-term resilience in catchment communities and be used as a case study in which to grow a sustainable model for community activity, at scale.

The knowledge created will provide a valuable insight into how strategies to tackle water quality can be complimentary applied to the context of both the UK and India. We hope to identify information and technology gaps that drive long-term creative research and support multidisciplinary networks. This will all be discussed through our proposed activities to bring our UK and India networks together

Through our connections we will identify key stakeholders for whom our citizen science generated outcomes will deliver benefit, both in the UK and India. These will include (1) local authorities responsible for water quality (i.e. Thames Water), (2) national and international policy makers responsible for environmental protection laws, (3) government environment agencies, (4) environmental charities and conservation groups or societies. A challenge for all governance models is the public trust in solutions. However, by using our UK based NGO (Thames 21) and India connections (Saurabh Gupta from Earth5R) we will build on an existing trusted pathway to the community and the 'pull' from them to help tackle India and the UK's water quality challenges. Of particular benefit will be the communities that Thames21 and Earth5R have been working with in London and Mumbai. This will develop their ability to use scientific approaches in the on-going environmental clean-up and empower individuals to identify key waste management problems. This will feed directly back into problem-oriented monitoring strategies being developed in PATHWAYs that meet community inclusion and stakeholder needs.