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Wading through Perceptions: Understanding Human Perceptions of Water Quality in Coastal Waters
Citation:
Mazzotta, M., K. Mulvaney, S. Lyon, AND N. Merrill. Wading through Perceptions: Understanding Human Perceptions of Water Quality in Coastal Waters. Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) 24th Biennial Conference, Providence, Rhode Island, November 05 - 17, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
Coastal water quality contributes in important and valuable ways to ecological health, human health, and human well-being. It also is a critical economic driver for many coastal regions. Members of the public often make decisions about coastal activities and locations to visit, and make judgments about the value of coastal environmental policies and actions, based on their subjective perceptions of water quality. Yet, there is little consistent information about people's water quality perceptions in coastal areas, and even less that compares perceptions to objective measures. This research takes a first step towards understanding people's subjective perceptions, using a literature review to compile current understanding, augmented by focus groups to address gaps in the literature. Future research will link perceptions to objective measures.
Description:
Water quality perceptions influence people’s preferences for visiting coastal areas and willingness to participate in activities on or near the water. They also influence people’s social values for a waterbody, sense of place, support for protection of a waterbody, and likelihood of recognizing risks (or lack thereof) presented by water pollution. Currently, there are no consistently-used metrics for measuring water quality perceptions in coastal and estuarine waters despite some efforts to measure subjective perceptions in freshwater areas and fewer attempts in coastal areas. Very few of these studies have utilized the same questions, so a general understanding of water quality perceptions has not resulted. To better understand water quality perceptions, we conducted a literature review of the existing research. This review revealed the use of extremely general questions at broad geographical scales that are difficult to generalize across the studies or match perceptions with objective water quality data. While there was a lack of consistency across the literature for questions used to determine perceptions, a more specific gap in the available literature was studies in coastal and estuarine areas. To fill this gap, we conducted six focus groups with New England residents to identify qualitative characteristics that influence their perceptions of water quality in coastal areas and how those perceptions influence their choice of location. Participants identified water quality as an important characteristic that influenced their choice of location for coastal activities. The focus groups also revealed a number of attributes contributing to perceptions of water quality, including: water clarity, debris, prevalence of seaweed, and reputation/history of beach closures. From here, we can begin to synthesize how people perceive coastal water quality and identify measures to accurately assess people’s perceptions of the coastal waters they use.