Water Literacy through Citizen Science Approach

Abstract

The world is going through unprecedented water crisis. Much of the climate crisis and socialecological-economic crises and even political crisis are brewing from the linked water crisis. India is among the most distressed in terms of water crisis. The water crisis seems an inherent challenge as we continue pushing the droughts and floods to the conflicts of ownership, access, equity, sanitation, gender, and more. That is further challenged by the governance of resilience with policies and projects driven by more mitigation measures than prevention and adaptation measures and with often a normative perspective of a lost battle. The rising water crisis in a
country that is abundant in water wisdom is worth questioning and resolving. With the rise in the water crisis, the mitigation and adaptation approaches are also maturing globally and in India. A necessary fundamental change among the water practitioners in policy, research, academia, and practice is now fully realized. 

The realization has also brought into focus the role of citizen science in fostering mainstream science and societal engagement towards discussing the water worries and collectively finding the possible solutions. Since, water management is after all people management, water literacy through citizen science approach is extensively experimented primarily to collect data, collate ideas and curate actions to finding local solutions to the global water problems. Since, the approach creates room for community discourses and decisions towards water conservation, management, and resilience building.

Citizen science was always existing and exploited to make science and policy. One may argue that the foundation of the modern science is laid by the citizen science. And in that in that way, it is coming to full circle, seeking its long overdue acknowledgement and appreciation. One may also argue that the values and ethos of citizen science has evolved from the traditional (community) water conservation and management practices and thus is a powerful framework to bring behavioural change in the society. That it is an important input into making science is finally acknowledged and appreciated by the scientific community and policy field is something to reckon with and rejoice for making the citizen science framework more robust. It’s contribution in making the complex science look comprehensible to produce a knowledge and composable into wisdom to apply on ground then and there with the community needs more institutional arrangements. The emergence of citizen science is imperative in the current times to connect science and society.