The success of water conservation restrictions depends in part on governments' capacity to monitor water use. Inviting the general public to report instances of water waste is one means of expanding government capacity to monitor and enforce water use. Why are people in some communities more frequently engaged in such “participatory surveillance” than in other communities? Does participatory surveillance help achieve conservation goals? We explore the social correlates and conservation outcomes of participatory surveillance regimes with an analysis of water conservation in the U.S. state of California. During California's historic 2014–2017 drought, the state established hotlines and websites for the public to report water waste anonymously. Californians responded by reporting more than 485,000 water waste complaints over the course of the emergency. Analysis shows that besides the water supply characteristics and drought severity, several social and institutional factors correlate strongly with complaint volume. Specifically, we find that municipal and special district utilities received more complaints than investor‐owned utilities, and that complaints correlated positively with communities' level of education and partisan competition. We do not find strong evidence that communities' income, income distributions, and racial/ethnic compositions correlate with overall reporting. We further find that complaints are positively associated with conservation outcomes. Taken together, results indicate that social contexts can influence participation in participatory surveillance, and that participatory surveillance can be a potent means of enhancing water restrictions during a drought emergency.

中文翻译：

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公共水浪费报告：上下文相关性和保护成果

节水限制的成功与否，部分取决于政府监控用水的能力。邀请公众举报水资源浪费事件是扩大政府监测和执行用水能力的一种手段。为什么某些社区的人们比其他社区更频繁地参与这种“参与式监视”？参与式监测是否有助于实现保护目标？我们通过对美国加利福尼亚州的节水情况进行分析，探讨了参与性监测制度的社会相关性和节水结果。在加利福尼亚州历史性的2014–2017年干旱期间，该州建立了热线和网站，供公众匿名举报水资源浪费。加利福尼亚人的回应是报告了485多个，紧急情况下有000例浪费水的投诉。分析表明，除了供水特征和干旱严重程度外，还有一些社会和制度因素与投诉量密切相关。具体而言，我们发现市政和特殊地区的公用事业收到的投诉要多于投资者所有的公用事业，而且投诉与社区的教育水平和党派竞争呈正相关。我们没有找到有力的证据表明社区的收入，收入分配以及种族/族裔构成与总体报告相关。我们进一步发现，抱怨与保护结果呈正相关。综上所述，结果表明，社交环境可能会影响参与性监控的参与，