The Wetland Explorer: A digital tool for improved community engagement with water quality modelling for decision-making

Participatory modelling is a way to include local people’s knowledge in environmental computer modelling. It has primarily been analysed as a process enhancing scientific understanding and public understanding of science, rarely for generating decision-supporting knowledge in environmental management. This article presents a co-design project creating a digital interface that makes it possible for local communities to deploy the outputs of participatory environmental modelling after the conclusion of the research activity. The empirical context is water management in a location in north London in the UK, a country with an advanced system for community involvement with surface water governance. However, research shows that scientific and technical expertise continue to dominate decision-making, even within organisations designed to include local communities. Hence, the objective of the project was to create a digital tool that would enable community groups to engage with outputs from participatory scientific modelling in the context of water management. A co-design project, in collaboration with the local environmental charity Thames21, focused on making outputs from a previous participatory modelling project comprehensible and open to probing by community groups. The project created the interactive Wetland Explorer tool, a web-based interface for visualisation of modelling results. The Wetland Explorer demonstrates the potential of digital tools for public engagement with scientific models. User feedback from a trial with the tool also points to future research needs. This account of the creation of the Wetland Explorer contributes to the advancement of public engagement with water science in the context of environmental management.