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Browsing by Author "Haas, Steven C."

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    Motivation, Retention, and Program Recommendations of Save our Streams Volunteers
    Roggenbuck, Joseph W.; Haas, Steven C.; Hall, T. E.; Hull, Robert Bruce IV (Virginia Water Resources Research Center, 2001-05)
    A survey of the Save Our Streams (SOS) volunteers in Virginia documented their socioeconomic characteristics, their reasons for volunteering, their level of participation in SOS monitoring and other volunteering, their assessment of the validity and reliability of the SOS water quality monitoring procedures, and suggestions for program improvement. Common reasons for SOS involvement were to protect the environment, learning, teaching, be of service, and nature enjoyment. The most common length of participation in the SOS program was one to three years. Most volunteers felt that the SOS’s recommended procedures provided accurate measures of stream health, and most felt they did the monitoring procedures quite or very well. However, about one-third of all SOS volunteers monitored a stream less than once a year; about 20% did so the recommended four times a year. Volunteers generally rated program services provided by SOS as quite high. Program changes most favored included standardized training procedures across all of Virginia, and lobbying government agencies to use volunteer data to protect streams. A second tier of preferred services included special guest speakers about water and environmental quality, an annual meeting for all volunteer water monitoring groups in Virginia, paid full-time SOS regional coordinators, and random field spot-checks of the SOS volunteers’ work to assure quality data. Opposed changes were an easier certification test and removing the choice from volunteers on what streams they monitor. Reasons for dropping out of the program included too many other obligations and not enough time. Differences in reasons for participation and suggestions for program improvement are reported for Rookies, Fading Veterans, Active Veterans, and All-Stars among the SOS volunteers.
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    Virginia Save Our Streams (SOS): Volunteers' Motivations for Participation and Suggestions for Program Improvement
    Haas, Steven C. (Virginia Tech, 2000-07-28)
    Concern about water quality has become an important environmental issue in the world, the United States, and Virginia. Volunteers have increasingly stepped forward to assist in the water quality monitoring task, and both state and federal protection agencies increasingly depend upon such voluntary assistance. The Izaak Walton League's Save Our Streams (SOS) is one such volunteer citizen water quality monitoring program. Recruiting, training, organizing and retaining volunteers are among the most resource intensive tasks of volunteer organizations. The purpose of this thesis is to document the motivations of SOS volunteers and the primary causes of their attrition in order to improve the SOS program as well as to enhance the experience of SOS volunteers. We also compared motivations of SOS volunteers, differences in SOS volunteers' evaluation of the program, and suggestions for improvements by varying participation levels in volunteerism. We found that SOS volunteers are primarily motivated by a desire to protect streams and to improve water quality. Learning about streams and teaching these concepts to others were also important motivations. Volunteers cited not enough time and having too many other obligations as the main reasons why they stopped participating in SOS activities. Recruitment and retention of SOS volunteers may be aided by providing feedback about how volunteer data are being used by protection agencies to protect streams, and providing opportunities for learning about streams and teaching these concepts to others. Lastly, we found that those volunteers who were most active in SOS differed in their motivations for participating, tended to be the most critical of the services and materials, and were most adamant about their data being used to protect streams.