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Short Abstract

Chile has many community science initiatives due to the lack of coverage of governmental environmental monitoring in such a varied, wild and vast country. Representing Voluntarios por el Agua, measuring river water quality, we illustrate our tools and the data we grapple with and try to communicate.

Abstract

The community science project, Voluntarios por el Agua has been carrying out water quality measurements and repeat photography for four years. A mix of local activists, nature lovers and scientists make up the project that started as a means to monitor the beloved rivers of the Maipo watershed in the Andes mountains to the east of Santiago.

Correct usage of instruments, training on data collection, the units of monitoring and consistency of the measurement times are of high priority but as the project evolved, errors crept in and needed to be corrected and explained in different ways to the volunteers so as not to criticise, but to empower them.

The project was kept together by the bond that was born by gathering by the river, meeting new people, sharing ideas and planning community events, but the data is our growing evidence-based tool that will hopefully be taken more seriously when we learn how to communicate it to the authorities. The lessons learned by combining the knowledge base of scientists with the spirituality and importance of the place based on ancenstral knowledge and the insights into the threats to the water courses from local activists is invaluable and has made the project multi-faceted and the sum of many parts. How to keep doing quantitative robust science while fitting into local people´s needs and drive is challenging and inspiring.