Problem overview:
Awareness and visions: The Streamwatch programme has initiated the idea of inviting school children to participate in monitoring water quality of rivers and streams in New South Wales. As a result of this programme, the public has become highly aware and more concerned of their environment.
Integrating stakeholders: The Streamwatch programme has been a success due to the cooperation and coordination from various stakeholders involved; schools, local communities, social clubs, NGOs, etc.
Training and educational initiatives: School children and local communities that volunteered in this programme will be trained to monitor and gather water samples for the use of water quality assessment in a proper scientific manner.
Meeting information requirements: With the help of the volunteers, information on water quality of rivers and streams has become available at a very cheap cost.
Background in summary:
What is the Streamwatch programme: Renato Ramsay, a science teacher who had been experimenting with the concept of community participation in measuring and restoring water quality in streams organized a special educational team to co-ordinate a program, called Streamwatch. In this programme, students take duty in measuring water quality in streams and rivers near their schools.
Data quality assurance: Testing, analysis and reporting required strict data quality and that is why personnel at the Sydney Water Board were asked to instruct students on water quality testing procedures and showing the students, in the field, their special secrets.
Various stakeholders participated in the programme: Streams and rivers became the focus of the students and their parents, and by extension, the business community. Social organizations, like the Lions Club and Rotary International helped out by buying water testing kits and supplies for schools. Water sporting clubs, like fishing and kayak clubs, joined in with projects to test and clean up rivers.
Expanding the programme to a national scale: Every Australian State has followed the Streamwatch example and established volunteer partnerships with community groups. These finally joined together as a national Waterwatch Programme that co-ordinates all the groups into a network extending from local communities, private corporations and NGOs through state governments to the national and international scene.
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Good practice rating:
(1 for the best, 5 for the lowest score) |
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Sustainability
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Efficiency
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| 2 |
 Improvement in either the environment of economic condition with no harm to the other. |
1 |
Cost efficient. |
| 2 |
Sustainable over time (not one-off) |
Process |
| Adaptability |
1 |
Participation of the community |
| 2 |
Location adaptability (can the project be done in other places?) |
1 |
Participation of resource owners/users |
| 2 |
Socio-cultural adaptability. |
1 |
Partnerships between various actors (Governments, NGO, Academia, Private) |
| 4 |
Level of development adaptability. |
- |
Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments. |
| 3 |
Style of government adaptability. |
2 |
Ability to attract political interest/support |
| 3 |
Degree of decentralization adaptability. |
2 |
Procedures for feedback and review. |
Comments on this example:
Just as a doctor can determine health from testing blood, water quality in streams and rivers is the most efficient index of environmental health. Almost any unsustainable activity or environmentally unsound practice will result in water pollution. Therefore, the community (school) based water quality monitoring project can be highly beneficial in monitoring sustainable development.
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Sustainability of the project:
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Awareness and visions: The Streamwatch programme is the best way of creating public awareness and involvement the public in protecting the environment. Many countries have used public relation campaigns or TV advertisement to raise environmental awareness but have been unsuccessful because it could not get the public to be personally involved in the issue. However, the Streamwatch programme encourages people to have first hand experience on environmental monitoring and they become involved in protecting the environment.
Public awareness benefits of this project are of paramount importance. Not only will a government save money on obtaining a scientific understanding of environmental problem areas, it will save money by not having to conduct expensive public awareness campaigns to combat poor practices.
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Adaptability of the project to other situations:
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Because the project is, in effect, a top-down process where participants must carefully follow research quality guidelines, the activity does not threaten any style of government, nor does it require a decentralized government structure.
This type of project has been conducted in many countries around the world. Sometimes it has been successful, sometimes not. There were two keys to success in Australia. First, the core group for the initial project at the Sydney Water Board was (and continues to be) funded by the Corporation. In other countries where NGO's attempted to get the project going there was an element of competition between NGOs for funds. The projects became owned by the NGOs because the NGOs needed to make money from them so the project could survive. The Australian example was not intended to make money, but to save money, through public compliance and cooperation. There was an explicit attempt to push ownership of the project onto a wide spectrum of community organizations, schools, and NGOs.
The second key to success was getting the New South Wales Board of Education to include Streamwatching as a part of the secondary school science program. This was done at a very early stage and enabled teachers to engage in the activity within their appointed mandates.
A similar program, the Global Rivers Environmental Education Network, has been hugely successful in the United States and Europe.
| Process of decision making and implementation: |
Integrating stakeholders: The Streamwatch programme receives a lot of support from social organizations and NGOs because what the programme is doing is apparently resulting in the improvement of the environment, which is in this case, the water quality of rivers and streams.
Training and educational initiatives: Students or communities that are involved with the Streamwatch programme receive proper training on how to collect water quality information, along with important information on the environment. They get to learn from first hand experience, which makes learning more interesting.
Meeting information requirements: Environmental data collection has always been perceived as a sophisticated issue that requires a high degree of technical expertise, financial resources and scientific equipment. However, the Streamwatch programme has proven this perception wrong and that data collection can be done simply but yet efficiently if there is proper supervision of how the data should be collected.
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Documentation: |
Literature or other written project review references
Everything you need to know about this project, and how to emulate it, is available on the Streamwatch web site. Everything you need to know about this project, and how to emulate it, is available on the Streamwatch web site. http://www.streamwatch.org.au
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Source of Information: |
Streamwatch
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Contacts: |
Renato Ramsay, Director
Sydney Water Corporation Streamwatch Project
380 Moreton Park Road
Menangle NSW 2568
Australia
FAX: International + (612) 9385 5543
Email: wbemu@peg.apc.org
http://www.streamwatch.org.au
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Submitted by: |
Tellus Consultants Ltd.
Chesher@TellusConsultants.com
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