Do you see what I see? Understanding how human perceptions match biophysical measurements of water quality
Citation:
Mulvaney, K., N. Merrill, AND M. Mazzotta. Do you see what I see? Understanding how human perceptions match biophysical measurements of water quality. University of Rhode Island Marine Affairs Seminar, Kingston, RI, November 16, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
People make their decisions about water recreation in part due to their perceptions of the water quality at a site. This work focuses on understanding the connections between humans' perceptions of water quality and the best-available water quality. We seek to understand how well the perceptions match and where they do not in order to identify areas for improved risk communication.
Description:
People ultimately choose to go to a place and to engage in a type of recreation at a site based on a number of different aspects, including their perception of the water quality at a site. This work represents the findings from a mail survey and structured focus groups that asked how do people develop their perceptions of water quality? Water clarity was the biggest contributor to perceptions, but not necessarily when overlaid with biophysical data. We also found that policies and site attributes contribute to water quality perceptions, although less than the water quality data itself. In connecting water perceptions to coastal water quality measurements, there remains limited biophysical data that scales to human use at the shoreline.