Public perspectives on water quality communication and interest in participatory monitoring approaches in Jalisco, Mexico

1 Introduction

The ongoing degradation of water quality represents a pressing threat to both human and ecosystem health (van Vliet et al., 2023; Zhi et al., 2024). Recent global assessments indicate that only 56% of evaluated water bodies met “good” water quality standards in 2023 (United Nations Environment Programme, 2024). Poor water quality undermines access to safe drinking water, endangers biodiversity, and affects human wellbeing. Addressing water quality issues requires comprehensive management strategies.

Water quality management depends critically on monitoring programs that generate accurate data to inform policy decisions and guide public action (Uddin et al., 2023). Yet monitoring alone is not sufficient. Communicating findings in accessible and meaningful ways is essential for raising public awareness, influencing behavioral change, and promoting accountability and compliance with environmental regulations (de Vries, 2020; Schaffer et al., 2022). Despite this, efforts to communicate water quality have frequently proven ineffective (Dunn et al., 2014; Phetxumphou et al., 2015; Ochoo et al., 2017). Reports often rely on overly technical language, making them inaccessible to the broader public (Nicholas and Vedachalam, 2021). Additionally, the use of unsuitable communication channels, neglect of public preferences, and the prevalence of unidirectional messaging further undermine public engagement and comprehension (Amador-Castro et al., 2024). Such gaps hinder society’s capacity to meaningfully engage in water management and advocate for improvements where necessary (Evans and Carpenter, 2019).

Science-communication research further indicates that effectiveness cannot be inferred from the mere availability of information. Communication should begin with the decisions audiences face, identify what people need and already understand, design messages and channels to close consequential gaps, and evaluate whether those communications are usable in practice (Fischhoff, 2013). This decision-centered perspective shifts attention from one-way dissemination to an iterative public interface in which relevance, intelligibility, source credibility, and opportunities for dialogue shape whether technical evidence can inform action (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017). In water governance, the practical value of such communication also depends on institutional navigability: residents need to be able to identify competent authorities, understand their respective roles, and know how to direct questions or concerns through appropriate institutional routes (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2018).

Alongside clear communication, participatory approaches to water quality monitoring can strengthen resource management. Public engagement through citizen science and other participatory initiatives helps establish priorities, increases public acceptance of policy decisions, and promotes the development of contextually relevant solutions (Abas et al., 2023). Nevertheless, integrating effective public participation within water governance frameworks remains challenging, as participation can be influenced by geographic, social, and institutional complexities at local, regional, and national levels (Behmel et al., 2018).

Research on participatory water governance similarly shows that participation is multidimensional and that formal opportunities for involvement do not, by themselves, guarantee meaningful influence. Its effectiveness depends on who is represented, the quality and intensity of interaction, the authority afforded to participants, and the institutional conditions that sustain engagement over time (Newig et al., 2023). In participatory monitoring, these conditions extend beyond recruitment to include participant capacities, organizational support, communication, feedback, and the interfaces through which citizen contributions connect with institutional processes (San Llorente Capdevila et al., 2020). Trust may further shape these relationships, although its role in water governance remains context-dependent and inconsistently conceptualized, particularly in Global South settings (Voogd et al., 2022). Collectively, these perspectives justify treating information exposure, perceived communication quality, institutional navigability, stated willingness, and the authority ultimately afforded to participants as related but analytically distinct dimensions of the public interface of water governance.

In Mexico, legislation explicitly recognizes the importance of public communication and participation. The National Water Law stipulates that society’s informed engagement is crucial to the preservation of water resources, requiring government bodies to actively promote a culture of responsible water use (Cámara de Diputados, 2023). Furthermore, constitutional amendments since 2012 have established water access and sanitation as fundamental human rights, advocating for inclusive participation frameworks that involve diverse societal stakeholders (Diario Oficial de la Federación, 2012). Within this framework, Mexican Official Standard NOM-001-SEMARNAT-2021 sets pollutant limits and compliance requirements for wastewater discharges into national receiving waters, providing discharge-regulation context rather than an ambient surface water monitoring standard (Diario Oficial de la Federación, 2022). Roles of federal and state bodies relevant to water management are summarized in Supplementary Table S1.

Mexico’s regional commitments under the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (Escazú Agreement) place proactive access to environmental information, participation in environmental decision-making, and access to justice within a single binding framework (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2018). The Agreement thereby positions communication and participation within the same governance architecture and builds on principles established internationally through the Aarhus Convention (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 1998).

Despite the existence of legal directives, public participation in water quality affairs faces notable barriers, including complex stakeholder dynamics, unclear institutional responsibilities, limited platforms for dialogue, and persistent public distrust of government authorities (Villada-Canela et al., 2019). Research on these issues aligns with international guidance that effective water governance relies on transparent communication and inclusive interfaces among science, policy, and society, enabling stakeholder participation (UNESCO, 2022).

Jalisco provides a policy-relevant setting for evaluating how information on surface water quality is communicated and for assessing public interest in participatory monitoring. Longstanding public concern over pollution in major water bodies, notably the Santiago River and Lake Chapala, has made the state a reference point for research and civic mobilization (CEC, 2013; Ontiveros-Cuadras et al., 2019; McCulligh, 2023; Fernández del Castillo et al., 2024). In this context, communities, social movements, and academic partners have organized to defend human, constitutional, and information rights related to environmental health, resulting in a precautionary measure from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, 2020) and a recommendation from Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH, 2022) to federal authorities. Understanding how residents perceive and receive information, as well as their willingness to participate in monitoring, can therefore inform more responsive water governance.

The literature therefore suggests that public communication, institutional navigability, and participation are interconnected but analytically distinct components of water governance. These dimensions have nevertheless developed largely within separate research traditions. Science-communication research has concentrated on how information is designed, conveyed, and made usable for different audiences (Fischhoff, 2013), while water-governance research has emphasized institutional relationships, accountability, and trust (Voogd et al., 2022). Citizen science research, in turn, has examined the participant and institutional conditions that shape implementation, sustained engagement, and the use of citizen-generated data (San Llorente Capdevila et al., 2020). Evidence that examines communication exposure, perceived effectiveness, institutional navigability, and participation interest within the same population-based framework, and evaluates how these dimensions relate to one another, remains comparatively limited. Addressing this gap is important because improving access to information alone may not clarify institutional pathways or overcome the practical and procedural conditions that separate willingness to participate from sustained and consequential involvement (Newig et al., 2023).

Against this background, this study aimed to characterize the public interface linking surface water quality communication, institutional navigability, and stated participation interest in Jalisco. The specific objectives were to: (1) assess exposure to water quality information, perceived communication effectiveness, information preferences, and awareness of institutional and feedback routes; (2) estimate interest in public hearings and participatory monitoring and characterize stated motivations, barriers, and enabling program features; and (3) examine whether prior information receipt, perceived communication effectiveness, identification of formally mandated authorities, and feedback awareness were associated with participation interest after adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics.

Accordingly, the study addressed three research questions: RQ1: How accessible and understandable is current water quality communication, and how navigable are relevant institutional routes? RQ2: What is the level and demographic distribution of stated interest in public hearings and participatory monitoring, and what motivations, barriers, and enabling features are reported? RQ3: How are communication exposure, perceived effectiveness, and institutional awareness associated with stated interest in public hearings and participatory monitoring?

The study makes three complementary contributions. Conceptually, it treats information exposure, perceived communication quality, institutional navigability, and participation interest as distinct but connected dimensions of environmental governance and evaluates their relationships. For program design, it provides population-based evidence to guide communication strategies and accessible public-hearing and participatory-monitoring programs. For policymaking, it links the operation of public communication and participation systems to Mexico’s environmental information, institutional feedback, and participation obligations under domestic law and the Escazú Agreement.

The remainder of the article is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the study area, questionnaire, sampling design, data collection, and analytical methods. Section 3 presents the descriptive and association results. Section 4 discusses the study’s principal findings in relation to prior research. Sections 5–7 develop the theoretical, managerial and participatory-program design, and policy implications, respectively. Section 8 addresses the study’s limitations and identifies priorities for future research. Section 9 provides a concise conclusion.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 Study area

Jalisco, located in western Mexico, is one of the nation’s 32 federal entities, spanning ∼78,588 km². In 2020, it was the third most populous state, with over 8.3 million residents, 88% of whom lived in urban areas (INEGI, 2023b). The population is evenly split by sex (49.1% male, 50.9% female). Rapid urban growth and pressures on surface waters from agriculture, industry, and domestic wastewater have created complex water management challenges (McCulligh and Vega Fregoso, 2019), making the state a policy-relevant setting for evaluating water quality issues.

Hydrologically, Jalisco is anchored by the Lerma–Chapala–Santiago system and also includes Pacific coastal basins. Lake Chapala is a strategic freshwater resource, whereas the Santiago River traverses the Guadalajara metropolitan and industrial corridor; state monitoring systems also report water quality data for the Zula–Lerma system and the Cajititlán and Zapotlán lagoons (CEC, 2013; CEA, 2025). Research across these systems documents marked spatial and temporal heterogeneity under combined municipal, industrial, and land-use pressures (Amador-Castro et al., 2026). This combination of strategic dependence, persistent pollution concerns, and dispersed institutional responsibilities makes Jalisco well suited to examining the public interface between monitoring, communication, and participation.

2.2 Questionnaire development

A structured questionnaire was designed from an extensive literature review and expert consultation (see Supplementary Material). It comprised 33 items organized into four thematic sections: (1) public perceptions and understanding of water quality (eight items); (2) perspectives on water quality communication (17 items); (3) interest in participatory water quality monitoring (four items); and (4) demographic characteristics aligned with standards used by Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) (INEGI, 2021). Gender was assessed by self-report. Most items focused on assessing perceptions and interest in surface waters (rivers, lakes, and ponds). The survey employed a mix of open-ended, multiple-choice, and five-point Likert-scale questions. The instrument was administered in Spanish, the predominant language in Jalisco, Mexico. This study specifically focuses on responses from the second, third, and fourth sections of the questionnaire. Before deployment, the questionnaire was reviewed and refined following a pilot test with ten water experts. The original Spanish version of the questionnaire and an English translation are available from the University of Leeds research data repository (Amador-Castro et al., 2025).

To characterize respondents’ primary stated motivation for participating in water quality monitoring, respondents reporting high or very high interest selected one reason from 12 substantive options plus “Other” (survey item 28), with the substantive options presented in randomized order. Item development drew on the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) as a conceptual reference for volunteer motivation (Clary et al., 1998), together with evidence from environmental citizen science research (Supplementary Material). Consistent with the study’s focus on identifying respondents’ principal stated reason for participation, responses were analyzed directly at the response-option level to preserve the specificity of the motivations expressed.

2.3 Sampling and data collection

Survey planning used a simple-random-sampling (SRS)-equivalent benchmark of approximately 1,000 completed interviews. Under maximum variance (p = 0.5), this corresponds to a margin of error of approximately ±3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level under SRS (Bartlett et al., 2001). This value was used to guide the fieldwork target and should not be interpreted as the achieved precision of the multistage survey; outcome-specific precision was subsequently estimated using the survey design, with realized design effects and effective sample sizes reported in Supplementary Table S10.

Sampling followed a three-stage, cluster-based design. At the first stage, Basic Geostatistical Areas (AGEBs) from INEGI’s National Geostatistical Framework were selected using probability proportional to size (PPS), with the population aged 18 years or older as the measure of size (INEGI, 2024b). At the second stage, residential blocks were selected within sampled AGEBs using PPS. Systematic PPS selection at both stages followed the cumulative-total method, in which units were selected from the cumulative population measure after a random start (Lohr, 2021). At the third stage, inhabited dwellings within selected blocks were approached systematically using a random starting point and a fixed sampling interval. Fieldwork yielded 1,036 completed interviews; the achieved geographic cluster counts used for variance estimation are reported in Section 2.4.

Eligible respondents were adults aged 18 years or older residing in Jalisco who agreed voluntarily to participate. Recruitment within sampled areas incorporated age-by-sex cross-quota controls to improve alignment of the achieved sample with the demographic distribution of Jalisco’s adult population (INEGI, 2021). Within selected dwellings, interviewers recruited an eligible adult subject to these quota controls. No additional within-household random selection procedure (e.g., a Kish grid or birthday rule) was implemented.

Data were collected in July 2024 through face-to-face interviews conducted by Enkoll S.A. de C.V. (https://www.enkoll.com), a public opinion research firm. This approach was chosen to maximize inclusion of rural residents and older adults, groups less likely to have reliable internet access. Interviewers were trained by the survey research firm following its standard field protocols.

2.4 Data analysis

All inferential analyses were conducted in R (v4.5.2) (R Core Team, 2025) using design-based methods implemented with the survey and srvyr packages (package versions are listed in Supplementary Material). The survey firm supplied the geographic components of the sampling hierarchy rather than variables explicitly labeled as sampling units. We therefore defined primary sampling units (PSUs) by the composite municipality: AGEB key and secondary sampling units (SSUs) as blocks nested within those PSUs. Variances were estimated by Taylor linearization under a with-replacement approximation at the PSU level, with nested SSU identifiers retained for design specification and reproducibility. Final weights supplied by the survey firm were calibrated to Jalisco adult population margins by age group and sex (INEGI, 2021) and normalized to a mean of 1. They ranged from 0.69 to 1.42 (coefficient of variation, 0.216; Kish unequal-weighting effect, 1.047); no trimming was performed within the analysis.

Survey-weighted percentages are reported with logit-transformed 95% confidence intervals calculated using the survey-design degrees of freedom. For the principal outcomes (items 9, 11, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, and 26), we additionally calculated Taylor-linearized standard errors, realized design effects relative to simple random sampling with replacement, and effective sample sizes (Supplementary Table S10). For the multiple-response channel items, the main-text analysis reports respondent-level prevalence among eligible respondents, with each channel coded as selected or not selected. Complementary shares of all reported selections were estimated in long format while retaining the PSU–SSU–respondent clustering structure and are reported in the Supplementary Material. Item 28 was summarized at the response-option level among all 460 respondents routed to the question; “Other,” “does not know,” and “no answer” were retained as separate categories, and no VFI aggregation was performed.

For demographic analyses, we fitted survey-weighted logistic regression models that included gender, age group, and education simultaneously, with high school as the education reference category. Items 9, 11, and 18 were analyzed as binary yes/no outcomes. For institutional-role outcomes, item 16 indicated whether respondents identified CONAGUA or CEA as a formally mandated inquiry authority, while item 17 indicated whether they identified PROFEPA or PROEPA as a formally mandated complaint authority. All original response categories were retained in the descriptive analyses.

For items 22 and 26, the primary outcome contrasted moderate-to-very-high interest (codes 3–5) with none or low interest (codes 1–2), treating “do not know” and “no answer” as missing. Sensitivity analyses used the questionnaire routing threshold of high or very high interest (codes 4–5) versus none, low, or moderate interest (codes 1–3), and examined an alternative specification that grouped “do not know” with the lower-interest category. Item 24 was described using all response categories. Its demographic model contrasted not effective or uncertain (“no” or “do not know”) with effective (“yes”), with a sensitivity analysis restricted to valid yes/no responses. For each demographic outcome, the false discovery rate across demographic contrasts was controlled using the Benjamini–Hochberg procedure (Benjamini and Hochberg, 1995).

To examine associations between communication, institutional awareness, and participation interest, we fitted separate survey-weighted logistic regression models for interest in public hearings (item 22) and participatory monitoring (item 26), using the primary outcome definitions described above. Each model included prior receipt of water quality information (item 9), perceived communication effectiveness based on valid yes/no responses (item 24), identification of formally mandated inquiry and complaint authorities (items 16 and 17), and awareness of a government feedback mechanism (item 18), while adjusting for gender, age group, and education. For each outcome, the Benjamini–Hochberg procedure was applied to the five substantive predictors; demographic adjustment terms were not included in this multiplicity correction. Associations are reported as adjusted odds ratios, model-standardized probabilities, and adjusted percentage-point differences with 95% confidence intervals. Analyses used complete cases for the variables required in each model, without imputation, and all tests were two-sided. Robustness was assessed using alternative definitions of participation interest and perceived communication effectiveness.

2.5 Ethics

The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the School of Engineering and Sciences at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, in June 2024, before data collection began (protocol number: P-EIC-202506–001). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their participation in the survey. Participants received no compensation for their involvement. The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.

3 Results

3.1 Study population

A total of 1,036 adults completed the survey. During fieldwork, quotas were used to align recruitment with INEGI age-by-sex distributions for Jalisco’s adult population (aged 18 years and older) (INEGI, 2021). Analyses used survey weights calibrated to the same population margins. Survey-weighted participant characteristics with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) are provided in Supplementary Table S2 and indicate representation across gender, age group, educational attainment, and occupation. The income distribution showed that most households reported monthly earnings below 17,308 Mexican pesos (MXN), equivalent to approximately US$946 using the 2024 average exchange rate of 18.3 MXN per US$1 (International Monetary Fund and International Financial Statistics database, 2025), consistent with the broader socioeconomic context of the region (Supplementary Figure S1).

3.2 Water quality communication reach is limited

Nearly nine in ten respondents (920 of 1,036 unweighted; 88.8%; 95% CI: 86.1%–91.0%) reported never having received information about the quality of the state’s surface water bodies. Descriptive estimates varied modestly across groups (Supplementary Figure S2). The share reporting no information was highest among respondents with a middle-school education (94.9%; 95% CI: 91.5%–97.0%) and lowest among those with postgraduate studies (78.8%; 95% CI: 62.6%–89.2%), while respondents aged 50–59 years also had a high proportion reporting no prior information (94.9%; 95% CI: 90.4%–97.3%). In the survey-weighted model adjusting for gender, age, and education, respondents with middle-school education had lower odds of reporting prior information receipt than those with high-school education (OR = 0.37; 95% CI: 0.19–0.70; Benjamini–Hochberg-adjusted p = 0.028); no other demographic contrast met the adjusted threshold (Supplementary Table S6). Thus, limited communication reach was widespread despite one education-specific contrast. Among the 116 respondents who had received information, 25.9% (95% CI: 18.8%–34.5%) reported that the most recent update occurred 2–6 months earlier and 22.5% (95% CI: 15.8%–31.0%) reported that it occurred more than 1 year earlier. Patterns in reported update recency were broadly similar across demographic groups (Supplementary Figure S3). Complete descriptive and demographic-model results are reported in Supplementary Tables S4, S6, S7.

3.3 Public demand for updates outpaced information seeking

Despite the limited information reach, public interest in receiving water quality updates was high (77.9%; 95% CI: 74.7%–80.8%), with the highest interest among respondents with postgraduate studies (92.3%; 95% CI: 77.9%–97.6%) (Supplementary Figure S4). Among respondents interested in receiving information (n = 810), monthly updates were the most common preference (36.9%; 95% CI: 33.2%–40.7%), followed by twice a year (24.9%; 95% CI: 21.8%–28.2%). Preferences varied modestly across groups (Figure 1), with men more often preferring monthly updates than women (40.4%; 95% CI: 34.9%–46.1% versus 33.6%; 95% CI: 29.1%–38.4%). Differences by education were also observed: respondents with postgraduate studies most frequently selected monthly updates (47.1%; 95% CI: 27.2%–68.0%), whereas respondents with no formal education most often preferred receiving information only in case of emergencies (39.0%; 95% CI: 21.8%–59.4%). Overall estimates are summarized in Supplementary Table S4.

However, active information seeking was much less common. Among interested respondents (n = 810), 23.6% (95% CI: 20.3%–27.2%) reported actively searching for water quality information (Supplementary Figure S5). Information seeking decreased with age, from 32.6% (95% CI: 26.1%–39.8%) among respondents aged 18–29 years to 14.9% (95% CI: 9.1%–23.4%) among those aged 50–59 years and 14.4% (95% CI: 9.9%–20.5%) among those aged 60 years or older. In contrast, information seeking increased with education, from 3.7% (95% CI: 0.5%–23.0%) among respondents with no formal education to 44.4% (95% CI: 28.4%–61.7%) among those with postgraduate studies. Men also reported more active searching than women (26.3%; 95% CI: 21.5%–31.8% versus 21.0%; 95% CI: 17.1%–25.6%). The overall active-search estimate is reported in Supplementary Table S4.

3.4 Preferred and actively used channels differ, while perceived communication effectiveness remains low

Among the 810 respondents interested in receiving water quality information, television (550 of 810; 67.5%; 95% CI: 63.0%–71.7%) and social media (506 of 810; 63.2%; 95% CI: 59.6%–66.7%) were the most widely selected preferred channels, followed by a dedicated webpage (290 of 810; 36.1%; 95% CI: 32.6%–39.8%) and radio (231 of 810; 28.6%; 95% CI: 25.0%–32.5%) (Figure 2). Among the 182 respondents who reported actively searching for information, a dedicated webpage was the most commonly used channel (116 of 182; 65.1%; 95% CI: 58.1%–71.6%), followed by social media (86 of 182; 46.5%; 95% CI: 40.0%–53.2%), television (55 of 182; 29.5%; 95% CI: 23.3%–36.5%), and scientific publications (32 of 182; 18.8%; 95% CI: 13.7%–25.2%). Because preferred channels and channels used were assessed in different eligible groups, this contrast should not be interpreted as a paired individual-level mismatch. Rather, it suggests that broad dissemination and active information seeking may require complementary channel strategies. Respondent-level channel estimates and confidence intervals are reported in Supplementary Table S4 and illustrated in Figure 2; survey-weighted shares of channel selections among active information seekers by subgroup are shown in Supplementary Figure S6.

Perceptions of communication quality were similarly unfavorable. Approximately two-thirds of respondents (690 of 1,036 unweighted; 66.4%; 95% CI: 62.4%–70.2%) answered that water quality was not being communicated clearly and effectively, while 2.6% (95% CI: 1.8%–3.9%) selected “do not know” (Supplementary Figure S7). In the demographic model using the primary outcome definition (“no” or “do not know” versus “yes”), adults aged 50–59 years had higher adjusted odds of rating communication as not effective or uncertain than those aged 18–29 years (OR = 2.50; 95% CI: 1.49–4.18; Benjamini–Hochberg-adjusted p = 0.003). Compared with respondents with high-school education, those with a bachelor’s or equivalent had higher odds of this rating (OR = 1.94; 95% CI: 1.14–3.29; adjusted p = 0.021), whereas respondents with elementary education (OR = 0.20; 95% CI: 0.12–0.34), middle-school education (OR = 0.63; 95% CI: 0.44–0.91), or no formal education (OR = 0.29; 95% CI: 0.11–0.77) had lower odds (all adjusted p ≤ 0.021; Supplementary Table S6). Excluding “do not know” responses produced an almost identical pattern and an overall estimate of 68.3% ineffective among valid yes/no responses (95% CI: 64.2%–72.0%), indicating that the education gradient was not explained by the uncertainty coding. Model-standardized probabilities and coding sensitivity are reported in Supplementary Tables S7, S9.

When asked how communication could be improved, respondents most often suggested using diverse media platforms (17.7%; 95% CI: 15.2%–20.4%), making content more visually appealing (16.0%; 95% CI: 14.0%–18.3%), simplifying the interpretation of information (12.3%; 95% CI: 10.4%–14.5%), promoting public participation (12.0%; 95% CI: 10.1%–14.3%), using simpler and more accessible language (10.6%; 95% CI: 8.6%–12.9%), and increasing update frequency (9.6%; 95% CI: 7.8%–11.8%). Together, these suggestions reinforce that both delivery channels and message design require attention (Supplementary Table S4).

3.5 Limited identification of formal authorities and feedback options

Respondents most frequently identified the local utility SIAPA (28.6%; 95% CI: 25.2%–32.2%), the federal water commission CONAGUA (28.1%; 95% CI: 25.2%–31.2%), and the federal environment ministry SEMARNAT (14.1%; 95% CI: 12.0%–16.7%) as institutions they would contact if they had a water quality inquiry. Overall, 378 of 1,036 respondents identified CONAGUA or the state water commission (CEA), the agencies included in the formally mandated inquiry-authority definition (37.1%; 95% CI: 33.9%–40.3%; Supplementary Figure S8). The categorical and combined formal-authority estimates are summarized in Supplementary Table S4.

For complaints, SIAPA (25.9%; 95% CI: 22.3%–29.8%), CONAGUA (21.6%; 95% CI: 18.7%–24.7%), and SEMARNAT (12.6%; 95% CI: 10.7%–14.8%) again predominated. Only 157 of 1,036 respondents identified the federal or state environmental prosecutors, PROFEPA or PROEPA, included in the formally mandated complaint-authority definition (15.1%; 95% CI: 12.8%–17.7%; Supplementary Figure S9). The categorical distributions and the low combined formal-authority estimates indicate that institutional routes are not readily navigable from the public’s perspective. The categorical and combined formal-authority estimates are summarized in Supplementary Table S4.

Awareness of feedback mechanisms was also limited: 112 of 1,036 respondents were aware of any means by which citizens could provide feedback to government on water quality issues (11.0%; 95% CI: 9.1%–13.1%). Descriptively, awareness was 13.4% among men (95% CI: 10.4%–17.1%) and 8.7% among women (95% CI: 6.7%–11.2%). Education-specific estimates for the smallest strata were imprecise and are presented with their confidence intervals in Supplementary Figure S10. The overall estimate is included in Supplementary Table S4.

3.6 Interest in public hearings is broad, but awareness and participation are limited

Among respondents providing a substantive interest rating, 748 of 1,020 reported moderate-to-very-high interest in participating in a public hearing or similar exercise if informed in a timely manner (73.7%; 95% CI: 70.4%–76.7%); 463 of 1,020 reported high or very high interest (45.2%; 95% CI: 41.6%–48.7%). Opportunities to act on that interest were reportedly scarce. Nearly two-thirds of all respondents (64.3%; 95% CI: 60.9%–67.5%) stated that they had never heard of such exercises, and 14.2% (95% CI: 11.9%–16.9%) reported that the most recent exercise they recalled occurred more than 1 year earlier (Figure 3). Among the 348 respondents who recalled an exercise, 58.1% (95% CI: 52.3%–63.8%) reported never having participated and 20.4% (95% CI: 15.7%–26.0%) reported that their most recent participation occurred more than 1 year earlier. Primary and alternative outcome definitions are compared in Supplementary Tables S4, S9.

Among respondents who recalled public exercises, the share reporting never having participated increased descriptively with age, from 48.8% (95% CI: 39.2%–58.5%) among adults aged 18–29 years to 69.2% (95% CI: 57.4%–78.9%) among those aged 60 years or older. It was also higher among women than men (62.7%; 95% CI: 54.9%–69.8% versus 54.2%; 95% CI: 45.7%–62.5%) (Supplementary Figure S11). Among respondents routed to the barrier item because they reported none, low, or moderate interest or did not provide a substantive interest response (n = 573), lack of time was the most frequently cited barrier (58.6%; 95% CI: 54.4%–62.7%; Supplementary Table S4).

Among respondents who had participated in a public exercise (n = 139), the leading motivations were to contribute ideas or solutions (30.5%; 95% CI: 22.9%–39.2%), learn about government actions on water management (23.6%; 95% CI: 17.3%–31.2%), and express personal needs or concerns (16.8%; 95% CI: 10.7%–25.4%). These responses indicate motivations centered on problem solving, information exchange, and the expression of community concerns (Supplementary Table S4).

3.7 Broad interest in monitoring meets practical barriers

Among respondents providing a substantive rating, 732 of 1,025 reported moderate-to-very-high interest in participatory water quality monitoring (71.5%; 95% CI: 68.4%–74.5%), while 460 of 1,025 reported high or very high interest (44.6%; 95% CI: 41.2%–48.1%) (Figure 4). In the demographic model, no gender, age, or education contrast met the Benjamini–Hochberg-adjusted threshold, indicating that broad interest was not confined to a single demographic group (Supplementary Table S6). Primary and alternative definitions are compared in Supplementary Tables S4, S9, and model-standardized subgroup probabilities are reported in Supplementary Table S7.

Among respondents routed to the barrier item because they reported none, low, or moderate interest or did not provide a substantive interest response (n = 576), the most commonly cited barriers were insufficient time or scheduling conflicts (48.0%; 95% CI: 43.0%–53.0%), personal constraints such as health conditions or advanced age (12.7%; 95% CI: 10.2%–15.6%), insufficient project information (7.5%; 95% CI: 5.7%–10.0%), self-assessed lack of skills (6.7%; 95% CI: 4.8%–9.2%), and concerns that activities were too complex or time-consuming (6.0%; 95% CI: 4.1%–8.6%) (Supplementary Table S4).

Across the 2,368 project-feature selections made by 1,036 respondents, flexible activity schedules accounted for 13.8% of selections (95% CI: 12.7%–15.1%), clear communication of how results will generate impact for 10.8% (95% CI: 9.7%–12.1%), and options to contribute from home for 10.1% (95% CI: 9.2%–11.2%). These values are survey-weighted shares of all selections, not percentages of respondents; participants could select up to three features. Other frequently selected supports included equipment provision, training, and simple reporting workflows (Supplementary Tables S3, S4).

Among respondents with high or very high interest (n = 460), the leading primary stated motivations were contributing to the environment or community (35.2%; 95% CI: 30.7%–40.0%) and improving or protecting local water resources (21.4%; 95% CI: 17.7%–25.6%). Together, these two environmental or community-oriented options represented more than half of primary selections. Learning something new or developing skills was selected by 11.0% (95% CI: 7.9%–15.1%) and contributing to scientific knowledge or sharing knowledge and skills by 4.6% (95% CI: 3.0%–7.0%). All response options, unweighted counts, and survey-weighted estimates are reported in Table 1.

TABLE 1. Primary stated motivations for participating in participatory water quality monitoring among respondents with high or very high interest (n = 460).

Respondents selected one primary stated motivation. The 12 substantive options were randomized across interviews; “Other,” “does not know,” and “no answer” are shown separately. Percentages and logit-transformed 95% confidence intervals are survey-weighted; n is unweighted and the denominator is all 460 respondents routed to item 28. The item was VFI-informed but was not the validated VFI, and does not yield VFI scale scores. Percentages may not sum exactly to 100% because each estimate was rounded independently.

3.8 Communication, institutional awareness, and participation interest

In the primary association models, prior receipt of water quality information and perceived communication effectiveness were not associated with moderate-to-very-high participation interest after adjustment for the other substantive predictors and demographics. For public-hearing interest (n = 988), the adjusted differences were 0.5 percentage points for prior information receipt (95% CI: −8.0 to 9.0; Benjamini–Hochberg-adjusted p = 0.911) and −2.3 points for perceived communication effectiveness (95% CI: −9.2 to 4.7; adjusted p = 0.645). For participatory-monitoring interest (n = 993), the corresponding differences were 4.3 points (95% CI: −5.2 to 13.7; adjusted p = 0.394) and −3.3 points (95% CI: −10.2 to 3.6; adjusted p = 0.394) (Figure 5).

Several institutional-awareness estimates were positive. Identifying a formally mandated complaint authority was associated with a 10.0-point higher adjusted probability of interest in public hearings (OR = 1.80; 95% CI: 1.14–2.84; adjusted p = 0.062). Awareness of a feedback mechanism was associated with a 10.5-point higher adjusted probability of monitoring interest (OR = 1.83; 95% CI: 1.07–3.12; adjusted p = 0.112), and identification of a formally mandated inquiry authority with a 6.3-point higher probability (OR = 1.40; 95% CI: 1.01–1.93; adjusted p = 0.112). None of the five substantive predictors met the Benjamini–Hochberg-adjusted 0.05 threshold in either primary model. Alternative interest cut-points and item-24 coding produced the same overall pattern, although the complaint-authority association for hearing interest crossed the adjusted threshold in one coding sensitivity; it was therefore not treated as a robust primary finding. Full odds ratios, adjusted probabilities, differences, and sensitivity results are reported in the Supplementary Material. Complete model results are reported in Supplementary Table S8, with coding and threshold sensitivities in Supplementary Table S9.

4 Discussion

Three findings characterize how residents encounter water governance in Jalisco: official information reached few residents, institutional routes were difficult to navigate, and stated interest in participation was nevertheless broad. The communication gap was especially marked. Nearly nine in ten respondents reported never receiving updates on local surface water conditions despite regular data dissemination by federal and state agencies (Conagua, 2024; 2025; CEA, 2025). This gap indicates that passive, predominantly online dissemination is not reaching much of the population. Comparable studies have found limited public reach even where internet access is higher (Dunn et al., 2014; American Water Works Association, 2024), and research on recreational-water advisories shows that posted information is less useful when it is not current, attributable, and explicit about consequences (Pratap et al., 2013). From a decision-centered perspective, the problem is not the absence of data alone but the failure to connect evidence to the decisions, uncertainties, and actions that matter to residents (Fischhoff, 2019). Although information receipt varied descriptively across some groups, the dominant pattern was a broad deficit in communication reach.

The association models sharpen this interpretation. Prior information receipt and favorable ratings of communication were not associated with moderate-to-very-high interest in public hearings or monitoring after adjustment for institutional-awareness measures and sociodemographic characteristics. Several institutional-awareness estimates were positive, but they did not meet the false-discovery-rate threshold in the primary specifications (Figure 5), and the isolated sensitivity result was not stable across analyses. Communication exposure, perceived quality, institutional navigability, and participation interest therefore appear to be related governance dimensions rather than successive steps in a single pathway. The null associations do not imply that communication is unimportant; communication may still shape whether participation opportunities are discoverable, understandable, and actionable. Additionally, prior research identifies understanding, access, dialogue, and procedural fairness as enabling conditions for engagement (Hartley, 2006; Altman et al., 2023).

The contrast between demand and search behavior is important: although most respondents wanted updates, fewer than one-quarter of those interested had actively looked for water quality information. Information seeking and preferences for update frequency showed more demographic patterning than participation interest. Higher educational attainment was associated with active searching and more frequent-update preferences, consistent with research linking education to environmental concern and engagement (Coertjens et al., 2010; Lin and Shi, 2014). However, social and economic context may shape environmental awareness more strongly than formal schooling (Edsand and Broich, 2020). In Mexico, persistent socioeconomic disparities continue to constrain equitable access to higher education (INEGI, 2023a), and these structural inequalities likely affect opportunities to receive, seek, interpret, and act on information.

Older adults and women also searched less actively. Television and social media were preferred for broad receipt, whereas dedicated websites were prominent among active seekers; television remains Mexico’s most widely consumed news medium (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones, 2024). Because these questions were asked of different eligible groups, the contrast does not show within-person switching or a paired mismatch. Rather, it distinguishes channels suited to proactive reach from those used by residents already seeking information. Together with gendered patterns in media use (Su et al., 2020; INEGI, 2024a) and age-related differences (Ivan et al., 2020), the results favor differentiated, proactive dissemination rather than a system that depends primarily on individual search.

The education gradient in perceived communication effectiveness warrants separate interpretation. Ratings were more critical among respondents with a bachelor’s or equivalent and less critical among several lower-education groups, and this pattern persisted when “do not know” responses were excluded. It should not be read as evidence that residents with less schooling are better served. More plausibly, groups differ in their exposure to official material, expectations of what useful communication should provide, or confidence in evaluating technical messages. The survey cannot discriminate among these mechanisms. The result therefore cautions against equating a less critical rating with adequate communication and reinforces the need to assess reach, comprehension, credibility, and access separately (Altman et al., 2023).

Low institutional awareness represented a second major discontinuity. Fewer than four in ten respondents identified a formally mandated inquiry authority, about one in seven identified a formally mandated complaint authority, and awareness of any feedback mechanism was rare. These responses should not be attributed solely to limited public knowledge. In a fragmented institutional landscape, a metropolitan utility such as SIAPA remains a functionally plausible first point of contact even when its formal mandate differs from that of environmental regulators. The observed pattern therefore reflects both limited awareness of institutional roles and an opaque division of responsibility across agencies. When competent authorities and referral pathways are difficult to identify, accountability becomes diffuse (Muir et al., 2023). This concern is especially salient in Latin America and the Caribbean, where institutional trust is among the lowest globally (Keefer and Scartascini, 2022).

Effective governance also depends on residents’ ability to translate interest into participation through visible and accessible public processes. Interest in water-related public hearings was broad across demographic groups, yet most respondents described such exercises as uncommon, and many had never heard of them. Among those aware of such exercises, reported participation remained limited and, descriptively, declined with age and was higher among men. Lack of time was the dominant stated barrier. Among previous participants, motives centered on contributing ideas or solutions, understanding government action, and expressing needs or concerns. This pattern points to an orientation toward problem solving and exchange rather than attendance alone. The gap between broad willingness and limited visibility or use of hearings is consistent with evidence that participatory processes in Jalisco have often privileged sectoral representation over wider involvement (McCulligh and Vega Fregoso, 2019). It does not establish that residents would exercise influence if invited, but it identifies a reservoir of interest that has not been matched by routine engagement in respondents’ reported experience.

Interest in participatory monitoring was similarly broad, even though monitoring generally requires more sustained commitment than attending a single hearing. Among respondents with high or very high interest, primary stated motives emphasized contributing to the environment or community, protecting local waters, learning, and scientific knowledge, consistent with citizen science research (Maund et al., 2020; West et al., 2021). These motivations matter beyond recruitment. Social identities, local knowledge, and expectations can shape what participants observe and how they interpret evidence (Jollymore et al., 2017). Participants should therefore be approached as situated knowledge partners rather than interchangeable data collectors. Broad interest is a governance resource, not evidence of existing influence; converting it into sustained participation will depend on whether programs reduce practical burdens, provide support, and connect contributions to visible institutional use.

5 Theoretical implications

Our findings do not support the assumption that greater access to information alone translates into greater willingness to participate. Communication reach, perceived quality, institutional navigability, and willingness can vary independently while remaining connected in practice. Communication is thus not merely a message-level intervention but part of the infrastructure that makes opportunities discoverable, intelligible, and actionable. This interpretation is consistent with work emphasizing sustained, responsive interaction rather than episodic information delivery (Hartley, 2006; Altman et al., 2023) and with a view of communication as iterative, audience-informed decision support (Fischhoff, 2013).

The distinction between willingness and consequential participation is also relevant. Meta-analytic evidence indicates that environmental-governance outcomes depend on how participatory processes are designed, including who is represented, how intensely communication occurs, and the authority afforded to participants. These effects also vary with institutional purpose and context (Newig et al., 2023). Research on water quality citizen science similarly locates success across participant capacities, institutional conditions, and the interactions that connect them (San Llorente Capdevila et al., 2020). This distinction defines the scope of the present analysis. The survey captures communication, institutional navigability, and stated willingness to participate rather than the process-level conditions that determine whether participation becomes consequential, such as delegated authority, deliberative quality, trust, or environmental outcomes. This boundary matters because trust in water governance remains inconsistently conceptualized and highly dependent on institutional and social context (Voogd et al., 2022). The theoretical contribution is therefore more specific: translating stated willingness into meaningful participation depends on how information, institutional routes, program support, feedback, and opportunities for decision influence are configured.

6 Managerial and participatory-program design implications

For communication managers, the results support a layered communication strategy rather than reliance on a single channel. Television and social media can extend proactive reach, while official websites can provide authoritative information, technical depth, and continuity for active seekers. Respondents also emphasized the need for diverse media, clearer visual presentation, simpler interpretation, accessible language, and more frequent communication. These preferences suggest improving message design and distribution together. Across channels, information should make local consequences and uncertainty clear, identify the responsible source, and connect evidence to feasible actions and clear routes for questions. Community-informed communication is especially important for groups that institutions routinely fail to engage (Altman et al., 2023). Mixed-media strategies remain appropriate where access is uneven (Shahzalal and Hassan, 2019; Ong’ong’a, 2024), but performance should be evaluated against comprehension, credibility, and actionability rather than exposure alone. Communication should also form part of a broader institutional response (Salem and Ertz, 2023), with audience needs and message performance reassessed as contexts change (García-Barrios and Estrada, 2022).

For teams responsible for hearings and monitoring programs, respondents’ reported barriers and enabling features offer a practical design agenda. Time was the dominant constraint across both participation settings, consistent with evidence across participatory initiatives (Frensley et al., 2017; Davis et al., 2020). For monitoring, health or age limitations, insufficient project information, uncertainty about skills, and perceived complexity also emerged, echoing barriers reported in other citizen projects (Geoghegan et al., 2016; Asingizwe et al., 2020). Correspondingly, flexible schedules, clear explanations of how results would generate impact, and options for contributing from home were among the most frequently selected program features. These priorities support modular tasks, accessible venues, remote options, equipment provision, training, and simple reporting workflows.

Inclusive program design should also account for differences in who can participate and under what conditions. The gender pattern in hearing participation aligns with evidence from Mexico and broader research showing that gender and age can shape engagement in environmental governance (Salguero-Velázquez et al., 2022; Ernst and Shamon, 2020). Hybrid formats may widen access when they complement inclusive in-person participation (Foroughi et al., 2023), while partnerships with schools and workplaces may reduce participation burdens by integrating activities into existing commitments (Pérez-Belmont et al., 2019; Araújo et al., 2022). Sustained engagement further requires timely feedback showing how participants’ contributions are used, because motivation and capacity must be supported by institutional support, communication, and visible pathways to impact (San Llorente Capdevila et al., 2020).

7 Policy implications

Policy should address communication, institutional navigability, and participation as connected governance functions rather than in isolation. Agencies should clearly publish responsibilities for inquiries, complaints, referrals, and feedback, and coordinate cross-agency handoffs so residents do not have to navigate mandate boundaries themselves. Clear service standards, status updates, and explanations of outcomes can strengthen accountability (Manaf et al., 2023) and help operationalize the Escazú Agreement’s linked commitments on environmental information and participation. Such reforms should not assume that trust follows automatically, as trust is context-dependent and shaped by demonstrated competence and responsiveness (Voogd et al., 2022). The policy objective should therefore be a transparent institutional interface through which residents can identify responsibility, obtain a response, and understand how their input was addressed.

Citizen-generated observations could complement official monitoring and address spatial or temporal data gaps (Fraisl et al., 2020), as recent national experience with Sustainable Development Goal reporting illustrates (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2025). Institutional uptake, however, requires more than additional observations. Participant knowledge and project context shape data and interpretation, making transparent protocols, metadata, quality assurance, and communication of uncertainty essential (Jollymore et al., 2017). Co-designed pathways can align community monitoring with agency information needs (König et al., 2021; Amador-Castro et al., 2024). In Mexico, NOM-001-SEMARNAT-2021 provides the regulatory context for wastewater-discharge limits (Diario Oficial de la Federación, 2022), but it is not an ambient surface water monitoring protocol. Programs intended to inform ambient conditions should therefore be aligned with the indicators, sampling procedures, and quality controls used by monitoring authorities.

8 Limitations and future research

Several limitations should be considered when interpreting these findings. First, the study is cross-sectional and relies on self-reported perceptions, awareness, and anticipated behaviors, which may be subject to recall bias or social-desirability bias. The associations estimated in the primary models should not be interpreted as causal. In particular, the absence of associations between broad measures of prior information receipt or perceived effectiveness and stated participation interest does not demonstrate that well-designed communication interventions have no effect. Those measures may not capture trust, perceived efficacy, message quality, timing, or the salience of a specific invitation, and the participation outcomes were hypothetical. We also did not independently verify the availability or quality of institutional communications, the occurrence and timing of public hearings, or the performance of complaint and feedback mechanisms. Observed gaps should therefore be interpreted as features of the public information and participation environment rather than direct measures of institutional performance.

Second, although analyses used design-based methods to account for clustered sampling and incorporated weights calibrated to census age and sex margins, residual bias cannot be excluded. Some marginalized groups, including indigenous communities and transient populations, may remain underrepresented. Several subgroup estimates, particularly for small education strata and for items answered by subsets of respondents, have wider uncertainty and should be interpreted cautiously. Item nonresponse was reported transparently (Supplementary Table S5) and treated as missing for inferential analyses, which used complete cases for the variables required in each model. Although item-level nonresponse was low, systematic differences between respondents and nonrespondents could influence estimates. Some outcomes were also assessed with single items or dichotomized for analysis, reducing nuance and potentially masking heterogeneity within response categories. The motivation item was informed by the VFI, but the study did not administer the validated 30-item instrument. Although response-option order was randomized, the single-choice format cannot estimate the co-occurrence or relative intensity of motives.

Future work should combine survey responses with content analyses of agency communications, usability audits of inquiry and complaint pathways, and administrative records of participation opportunities. Longitudinal, experimental, or stepped-wedge evaluations could compare communication-only reforms with interventions that also clarify institutional routes, create feedback loops, or offer concrete participation opportunities. Such designs would help determine whether communication affects participation directly, indirectly through trust and institutional navigability, or primarily by making existing willingness actionable. Qualitative research should also examine how residents interpret the roles of utilities and regulators and why education is associated with more critical evaluations of communication. Generalizability will depend on regulatory arrangements, media access, baseline trust, and public preferences; strategies in other regions should therefore be grounded in context-specific evidence.

9 Conclusion

This statewide study examined how residents encounter surface water quality information, navigate institutional routes, and view opportunities for public hearings and participatory monitoring in Jalisco. The evidence identifies weak communication reach, limited institutional navigability, and substantial stated participation interest. The adjusted models do not support a simple sequence in which prior information exposure or favorable communication perceptions generate willingness to participate. Communication, institutional guidance, and participation opportunities should therefore be treated as complementary rather than sequential governance functions. Improving the public interface of water governance will require proactive, audience-centered communication, clear inquiry and feedback pathways, and accessible participatory programs connected to visible institutional responses. Because the study is cross-sectional and measures reported perceptions and stated intentions, these implications should be tested through longitudinal, experimental, and implementation-focused research.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2026.1912612/full#supplementary-material

Supplementary material Supplementary material at the source

Footnotes

Edited by: Yaela N. Golumbic, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Reviewed by: Myriam Ertz, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Canada

Anna Elis Paz Soares, Universidade de Pernambuco, Brazil