Strategies employed for successful participant engagement in 'Tahoe Rain or Snow' citizen science to improve rain-snow partitioning

Abstract:

Precipitation phase is important to accurately simulate water resources availability; however, simulations of land surface hydrology in cold and temperate regions are impeded by uncertainties in rain-snow partitioning. Most land surface and hydrologic models use simple, spatially uniform algorithms to predict precipitation phase that do not consider other environmental conditions. Incorrectly assigning the phase of precipitation has been shown to result in biases in snow water equivalent, snow depth, and snow duration. To validate, and ultimately improve, simulations determining precipitation phase, the Tahoe Rain or Snow team engaged a group of ~200 citizen scientists to make ground-based observations of rain-snow partitioning. Citizen scientists submitted observations of precipitation phase (rain, snow, or mixed) and their location through the Citizen Science Tahoe mobile phone application. The Tahoe Rain or Snow survey was intentionally straightforward and user-friendly to facilitate broad participation across the region through the whole winter season with minimal training. In this presentation, we will share engagement data (locations, frequency, and other patterns) and the strategies employed for successful engagement of citizen scientists, which include recruitment through “amplifier” groups, consistent communication through a subscription text alert service, and the techniques we used to train participants for best data quality. This approach was effective for collecting quality precipitation phase data from the California and Nevada regions including the Lake Tahoe Basin, Sierra Nevada, and Truckee Meadows, and resulted in over 1000 observations in the pilot season. Above all, Tahoe Rain or Snow is a demonstration of collaboration between community members and scientists to improve estimates of scarce water resources in our mountainous region.