A role for citizen science in water quality monitoring and protection PhD position within Horizon Europe MSCA Doctoral Network “BEYOND”
This fully funded PhD position is available under the recently launched Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Doctoral Networks (DN) project “BEYOND” Beyond the current: Improving European flowing waters in an era of global change. BEYOND will train the next generation of water professionals who will deliver scientific and technological innovation across disciplines, institutions and countries needed to solve European water quality problems in an era of global change.
The aim of this PhD position is to determine how citizen science can be best engaged to contribute to water quality monitoring and protection.
The objectives include:
Investigate who does citizen science (CS) and why? Compare and contrast perspectives of the local community, NGOs, and other groups engaging in water improvement projects with and without CS.
Evaluate how reliable CS data are for monitoring and assessment and quality control mechanisms based on existing and new data collections.
Identify gaps that can be filled by citizen science
Develop a CS-based toolkit for identifying pressures at local and catchment scales
Evaluate existing and new frameworks for sustained CS projects
The project will be supervised by Mary Kelly-Quinn (University College Dublin), Jan-Robert Baars (University College Dublin) and co-supervised by Gabriele Weigelhofer (WasserCluster, Lunz, Austria) and Magdalena Bieroza (Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, Sweden).
The position duration is 3 years (with an additional year if required). You will be based in the in the School of Biology & Environmental Science, University College Dublin, in Dublin, Ireland.
E-mail mary.kelly-quinn@ucd.ie
The applicants must fill out the BEYOND application form following the URL below