To assist and speed up river pollution cleanup tasks in the Grant Tainan Area, River Restoration Center in Chang Jung University has conducted a series of public participation projects since 2002 under the sponsor of Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration. Unlike the previous years in which the River Restoration Center directly coordinated River Watch activities to involve people in schools, communities, and environmental NGOs, this year we emphasized our role on assistance and tool development. The tasks we focused this year included: (1) assisting Environmental Protection Bureaus of Tainan County and Tainan City in training and organizing their River Watch programs; (2) promoting environmental education for river restoration; (3) promoting web-based pollution reporting system; (4) evaluating the feasibility to involve the River Watch volunteers to assist the maintenance of artificial wetlands; (5) developing tools for public participation activities in river restoration. The whole series of public participation projects have established a mechanism to involve people in river pollution cleanup projects. Illegal wastewater discharges were better controlled by promoting River Watch activities, strengthening the reporting system, improving communication between river volunteers and environmental inspectors. Due to its successfulness, this public participation model has been adopted by Environmental Protection Bureaus nationwide. To provide our experience and tools developed over five years for other River Watch programs, we established a public participation website, held seed teacher training workshops, and published program management guideline and volunteer manual in this year’s project. Environmental Education Patch system, medaka egg test kit, and visual perception indicator system developed in this project can be applied elsewhere to involve people in river restoration activities.

Public Participation；Volunteer Monitoring Program；River Watch