Citizens4Water News

Karen Verstraelen, May 16, 2025, noon

Siqing Yu is a PhD student at the KU Leuven (Belgium) and the University of Melbourne (Australia). As part of her PhD, she has been researching a wide range of citizen science projects. As her ethnographic fieldwork, she took part a few times as a volunteer in the WaterWatch project in the area of Melbourne, facilitated by the Merri Creek Management Committee, a local not-for-profit environmental organization. In this interview, she tells us more about this Australian project measuring water quality, how it came to be and challenges it faced.

Karen Verstraelen, Feb. 3, 2025, noon

Within the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), our scientific research is deeply committed to the marine environment. Therefore, we are hyper aware that plastic pollution is a growing threat to our rivers, seas, and coastal ecosystems. Here in Flanders, where waterways like the Scheldt and Yzer flow directly into the North Sea, the problem hits close to home. But tackling an issue of this scale requires more than just awareness—it demands action.

Karen Verstraelen, Oct. 4, 2024, noon

Citizen science is proving to be a powerful tool for promoting inclusive water resource management. By involving local communities in research initiatives, it not only generates valuable data but also raises awareness and empowers stakeholders to advocate for their environmental rights. At the Water and Climate Department of Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), we are embracing citizen science to foster local engagement, collaborative learning, and empower communities to take an active role in sustainable resource management.

Karen Verstraelen, July 30, 2024, noon

On May 23rd 2024, we organised an online co-design workshop within the Citizens4Water project, as a first step to set up a global repository of citizen science initiatives for hydrology and water management.