Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Programs: An Assessment Of Public Participation As A Means Of Fostering Environmental Stewardship, Christopher Damon

Theses and Major Papers

Volunteer water quality monitoring organizations from across the country were surveyed (n=516) to determine the relationship between public involvement and the generation of stewardship within the community. Program coordinators were asked first to rate the level of stewardship values within the community, and then respond to questions covering four broad areas of public involvement: pre-existing conditions, public education, volunteer behavior, and communal involvement. For each question, organizations were aggregated by response, and a frequency analysis was performed to discover the most common responses in each of the four public involvement categories. the mean of perceived stewardship values was graphed as …