This award is under NSF's topic of Public Participation in Scientific Research. Facing escalating costs to infrastructure and the local economy, U.S. coastal communities are increasingly exploring protection measures to reduce storm surge risk. To date, researchers have relied on models to represent idealized scenarios of storm surge behavior; however, without observations to capture how storm surge behaves inside an estuary, actual effects remain a mystery. To explore this question, this project pursues three interconnected objectives: (1) to develop an improved understanding of storm surge behavior in three Maine estuaries with varying physical properties; (2) to engage local residents in data gathering, involving training; and (3) to evaluate the citizen science component by establishing the reliability of the physical data and by measuring citizen scientists' engagement in climate change-related issues.
The first objective will be achieved by deploying a network of pressure sensors maintained by local citizen scientists. Statistical analyses will quantify storm surge amplitude and phase propagation properties as it interacts with varying channel geometries, geomorphology, river discharge, and estuary alignments. To achieve the second objective, individuals will be assigned to one of four groups that vary by contributory or co-created approach to citizen science -- specifically, whether in-person training is provided, and whether a co-designed, dialogue-based activity occurs. The third objective will be achieved in two parts, by first evaluating the outcomes of citizen science participation, and second, by assessing the reliability of physical data. A pre- and post- project survey, in addition to in-depth interviews, will evaluate cognitive, affective, and behavioral indicators of engagement. Data reliability will be quantified using cross correlation between citizen science data and duplicate station data maintained by an expert scientist. Between-group comparisons will allow for testing of whether differences in citizen science approaches are associated with data accuracy.
