Despite the attention paid to water quality in the Great Barrier Reef Catchment Area over the past decades, improvements have not yet been fully realised. Recent research has shown that while the reef itself can be abstract, farmers and other stakeholders typically have a more direct connection to local ecosystem values, such as recreational fishing. With this in mind, we hoped to inspire increased environmental stewardship by linking changes in water quality in the Great Barrier Reef Catchment Area to the composition of species which the community values. We are conducting a citizen science led project where farmers, Indigenous groups and other volunteers chose sites for analysis –which were thought to range from pristine to having poor water quality. The project is structured as a co-designed community centred project where citizens involved in the project are central to the co-design site locations, the sampling method and analysis. The citizen scientists provided a list of species that the community values. At each site, water samples were collected for the analysis of pesticides, nutrients and suspended sediment concentrations and simultaneously passive eDNA samplers were deployed so that the species richness at each site could be determined. This process was repeated three times—once at the before the wet, once during the wet, and once after the heavy rains had passed. Personalised results will be delivered to the community groups showing both the water quality and the species composition at each site, and how that relates to the watershed as a whole. We will also present the results in person to each group. We are hoping that by showing clear links between water quality and community values, we will increase reef stewardship.