Who is saving our streamflow data? Exploring volunteer profiles and their engagement in the SIREN data rescue project.

ABSTRACT: SIREN is a citizen science project that involves lay people in the digitization of historical daily discharge measurements from Italian rivers. Such data, largely available only in printed yearbooks, hinders scientific progress in hydrological studies and water resource management. In this article, we examine the motivations behind citizen engagement in SIREN. Our multi-step approach combines quantitative analysis of online contributions, pilot interviews with selected volunteers, and a comprehensive questionnaire collecting basic demographic data and subjective impressions of the experience. Through these approaches, we identify three participant profiles: two driven primarily by the activity itself and one by the scientific content. The first profile values the straightforward nature of

SUBMITTER: Mazzoglio P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12510526 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature