Participatory environmental science

Luigi Ceccaroni, Barcelona Digital Technology CentreLaia Subirats, Barcelona Digital Technology Centre

Jaume Piera, CSICDick M.A. Schaap, MARIS

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Citclops project’s challenges and expected final outcomes

• Optical monitoring (color, transparency and fluorescence) – but better– Challenges:

• Use of optical monitoring to interpret seascapes• Combination and interpretation of data collected by:• A distributed group of people (Citclops’s participatory environmental science)• Publicly available data:

– GEOSS– Satellites– Standard maps

• other sources (to be defined)

– Expected final outcomes:• To re-design current monitoring• To reveal aspects/details of the environment people can’t normally see

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How Citclops is engaged with GEO and the implementation of GEOSS

• Active working-group/task (WA-01) on Integrated Water Information (incl. Floods and Droughts) within GEO and GEOSS frameworks – The WA-01-C4: Global Water Quality Products and Services

component identifies the following needs:• “Monitoring water quality using remote sensing, in conjunction with

strategic in-situ sampling, is needed to determine the current status of water quality conditions and to help anticipate, mitigate, and even avoid future water catastrophes.”

• “Systematic investments in an inland and near-coastal water quality information system are required.”

– The GEO Inland and Near-Coastal Water Quality Working Group aims to develop international operational water quality information systems based on Earth observation.

– It also requires support by dedicated in-situ sampling.

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How Citclops is engaged with GEO and the implementation of GEOSS

• Projects like Citclops bridge the gap between the local sampling experience and satellite information.

• Making the connection between the citizen observatory and satellite-based information will:– Commit the users to the water quality field– Give support to the innovation in space-based research and

services• Citclops results and experience will be directly linked to

GEO:– One of the partners (Hans van der Woerd from VU-VUmc

together with Gordon Campbell from ESA) directly involved in the information component that will make the Earth-observation products better accessible for the public and the local managers.

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Participatory environmental science• Citizens as environmental data consumers

• Monitoring tackled by scientists or policy makers alone• Expensive• Hard to use technology• Quantity, coverage?• High quality• Sustainable?

• Citizens as environmental data creators and consumers• Monitoring tackled by scientists, policy makers and citizens

• Low cost• Easy to use technology• Quantity, coverage?• Quality?• Sustainable

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The convergence of two trends• Commonplace objects understanding what we do with

them–Thanks to the proliferation of cheap, powerful sensors

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The convergence of two trends• Our personal identities firmly connected to our profiles on

social networks

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Interaction made “social”• How to create peer pressure?

• Recycle and impress your (Facebook) friends, or don't recycle and risk incurring their wrath

• Share your weight with your Twitter followers; it will help you to stick to a diet

• Monitor the environment and impress your friends, or don't monitor the environment and…???• Like a videogame, with points for doing good?

• Why create peer pressure?

• We are not mere automatons who assist big data in asking and answering questions. Well, we shouldn’t be…

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The social-engineering context• Social engineering disguised as product engineering

• From smart cars to smart sensors, "smart" as the shorthand for transforming present-day social reality

• Smart technologies becoming more intrusive• Risk of undermining our autonomy by supporting behaviors that

someone somewhere has deemed desirable:• Smart forks informing us that we are eating too fast• Smart toothbrushes urging us to spend more time brushing our teeth• Smart sensors in our cars telling us we drive too fast• Smartphones telling us which beach is better for us

• Devices giving us useful feedback • But also sharing everything they know about our habits with

institutions whose interests may be different from our own

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Applications

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Applications

• Smartphones, water color and Forel-Ule

(images courtesy of Marcel Wernand, NIOZ)

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Applications, applications

•Improvement of scuba-diving activities•Ranking the best beaches•Early-warning systems for HABs and bio-chemical hazards•Monitoring swell and length of waves•Water transparency via phone pictures and Secchi disc•Retrieval of sensor measurements from low-cost moorings

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From current monitoring to "participatory environmental science"

•Monitoring and…• Mobile devices as sensor platforms• Georeferencing • Education through citizens’ effective participation• Community involvement• Internet-distribution and social platforms to observe and

then share:• Photos (ocean color, transparency)• Oil spills• Algal blooms

• Recommendation• Decision support

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Information acquisition

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Information delivery

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Information delivery

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Information delivery

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Information processing•Standardization, interoperability•GIS and satellite-data processing, integration and interpretation•Data-quality validation in real-time

• Taking into account position, orientation and weather conditions•Context-awareness

• Data provided in a more or less voluntary, active or conscious way• Metadata and context data: time, location, name, instrument

•Personalisation• Location• Social environment• Profile and personal history

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Acquisition, processing, delivery: a new way

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Resources

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