Page - 212 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

COconcentrationsoutsideoftheirhome[43].TheIDAH2OMasterWaterStewards program,offeredbyUniversityof Idaho, aimsat involvingcitizens incollectionof water quality data in streams in Idaho, USA [44]. In North American citizen scientistshavecollecteddataforbirdwatchingprogramsandhavehelpedscientists develop guidelines for landmanagers [45]. The increased use of CS can thus be viewed as away for science to be informed by citizens but at the same time, and very importantly for risk perception, as a means for citizens to obtain a better understandingof the scientificfield in focus [46].Asmentionedearlier knowledge isvital for the riskperception.Whererisk isperceivedashigherbycitizens thanby experts within the field, it is often the unfamiliarity that is a key psychological driver for risk perception [6].But theremight also be scenarioswhere citizens are not fullyawareofa risk,until theyare involved incollectingdata for it underaCS program. In these situations, people might underestimate risk due to the lack of knowledge.CS can thus help people to obtainmore informedperceptions about a given risk and thereby facilitate a process of transformative learning that can ultimately result in citizens changing the perceptionof a givenproblem [47].Col- laborationbetweencitizens and scientists notonly influences citizen’s riskpercep- tion but may also influence the values and beliefs that the scientists possess and ultimately their risk perception aswell. This ledGibbons et al. [48] to suggest the distinctionbetweenmode1andmode2 researches.Mode1 research characterizes the traditionaldisciplinaryscientificendeavor inclosedscientificcommunities,and mode2 researchdescribes a transdisciplinary typeofknowledgeproductionwhere scientists and citizens collaborate to definebothproblems and solutions.Elements of thiswayoflookingatresearchcantodaybefoundin,forexample, the€80billion Europeanresearchand innovationprogramHorizon2020.Horizon2020 isbasedon threepillars: theexcellencepillar that resembles themode1research, the industrial leadership thatmainly focuseson innovation in theprivate sector, and theSocietal Challenges pillar that with requirements for multi-actor approach and co-innovation resembles themode2 research. 6 CitizenScienceandPlasticPollution Citizensciencehasbeenwidelyusedwithin thefieldofplasticpollution[49],often in and around the intertidal zone, e.g., as “beach cleanup” projects. A review conductedbyHidalgo-RuzandThiel [49] comparingCSandprofessional scientist projects concluded that CS can be a useful method for increasing the amount of available information on marine litter. Such events are typically organized by national organizations such as the NOAA in the USA [50] or by private stake- holders such asNGOs.NOAAhasdeveloped amobile application called “Marine Debris Tracker app” (Fig. 1) together with Southeast Atlantic Marine Debris Initiative (SEA-MDI), allowing citizens to report findings of trash from beaches andwaterways [51].Theapprecords thedebris location throughGPS,and thedata canbeviewdirectly on the citizens’phone. 212 K.Syberg et al.