| Volunteer Macroinvertebrate Monitoring (VMM) is a way for citizens to track the health of local watersheds. I investigate the utility of this tool as a means for empowering citizen groups to promote environmental change. In chapter 1, I assess the power of VMM as a tool for answering questions about land use. Standard macroinvertebrate metrics were not able to identify anthropogenic influences on streams at the farmsted scale. However they were able to detect differences at the microhabitat scale indicating that while VMM may not be an appropriate tool for citizens to answer questions about individual land use in their watershed, it could be a valuable tool for understanding long-term trends in watershed health. In chapter 2, I illustrate that untrained volunteers are biased when it comes to sorting and identifying macroinvertebrates, thus I conclude that organizers should strive to match protocols with volunteer ability, and should plan to put substantial time into training volunteers to correctly sort and identify macroinvertebrates. In chapters 3 and 4 I investigate the citizen groups that are using VMM. I conducted a national survey to understand the demographics of these groups, what their goals were, and how they felt VMM impacted their ability to act in the world. In chapter three, I conclude that the majority of VMM groups surveyed were primarily interested in public education. In concert with their goals, the majority of groups also perceived that they were more effective at promoting awareness than legislative change. As expected, opportunity structures at the state level significantly impact the character of VMM groups. A networked support structure in which states support, rather than run, VMM programs tend to support larger and possibly more independently motivated groups. Lastly, in chapter 4, I find that data quality is not clearly correlated with either data use or perceived outcomes. This is concerning because it illustrates that volunteers may not be rewarded for investing resources in collecting quality data and may ultimately undermine efforts to create legitimate and open dialogue with scientists and policy makers. |
