A citizen science water quality monitoring program that empowers community groups to monitor and protect the health of local waterways, hosted by the Greater Sydney Landcare Network. It was initiated by Sydney Water and the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA). It has supported local communities across Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Illawarra and Southern Highland regions. In 2013 the Australian Museum t
ook over the running of the program with financial support from Sydney Water. Streamwatch groups monitor water quality within their respective sub-catchments, providing opportunities to raise awareness of ecosystem health as well collecting information that may support action in regard to pollution events. Because the Australian Museum is committed to citizen science programs, the inclusion of Streamwatch within the Museums outreach program is natural progression in the Museums commitment to providing natural science access to the greater community. Streamwatch is closely aligned with NSW Waterwatch. Streamwatch is multifaceted and can provide a range of functions depending upon the intent or motivation of the groups who collect the data and those who interpret that data. Examples of this versatility include:
• a natural science education resource
• an urban and natural environment health assessment tool
• a means to evaluate the effectiveness of remediation projects
• a community based pollution alert network
• an information resource that can provide water quality trends over time
• a data base useful in identifying impacts to the natural environment
• as supplemental information to support management authorities etc
The program works to provide, reliable and useful water quality monitoring data which supports community groups in protecting their local environment. Streamwatch groups are trained to collect water samples, calibrate their testing equipment, carry out water quality testing and upload data to the Streamwatch website. If you are interested in volunteering with a group, please contact us at:
[email protected]
We can then forward your details to the Streamwatch coordinator.
