citizen science and environmental reporting - challenges...
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Katrin Vohland
Citizen Science and Environmental Reporting -
Challenges and Benefits
https://landsense.eu/
Dr. Katrin Vohland
Citizen Science and Environmental Reporting -
Challenges and Benefits
› What is Citizen Science?
› What is the COST Action about?
› and specifically the working group on policy
What is Citizen Science?
Citizens contribution to
data and scientific
knowledge (Bonney)
Empowering citizens (Irwin)
https://zeean.net
http://www.wissenschaftsjahr.de/jugendaktion
http://www.naturgucker.de
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/new
s/hires/2012/smallportabl.jpg
http://2009.igem.org/wiki/images/thumb/0/06/PKU_Overview_MLP.jp
g/400px-PKU_Overview_MLP.jpg
Kullenberg & Kasperowski, 2016 PLoS ONE 11(1): e0147152. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0147152
Data from: http://cordis.europa.eu/home_en.html
„Citizen Science“ gains momentum
(2011-2016)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
FP7 H2020
Number of funded projects
Number of funded projects
(2016-2020)
More:
› Funding
› Participants
› Data
› Publications
› ECSA members
› ….
› Research on Citizen
Science
http://www.spessartprojekt.de/
The COST Action 15212 on Citizen Science
Research on Citizen Science: COST Action - CA15212: to promote creativity, scientific literacy, and innovation throughout Europe
https://www.cs-eu.net/
Citizen Science
Research on Citizen Science: COST Action - CA15212: to promote creativity, scientific literacy, and innovation throughout Europe
https://www.cs-eu.net/
• Scientific Excellence
&
• Inclusion
• Gender
• Youth (Early Career
Investigator)
• „Geography“
(Inclusiveness Target
Country – ITC)
Research on Citizen Science: COST Action - CA15212: to promote creativity, scientific literacy, and innovation throughout Europe
https://www.cs-eu.net/
Research on Citizen Science: COST Action - CA15212: to promote creativity, scientific literacy, and innovation throughout Europe
https://www.cs-eu.net/
Working Group 3 – Improve society-science-policy interface
Working Group 3 – Improve society-science-policy interface
› Citizen Science Strategies in Europe
Topics in focus
› Next steps
› Questionnaire – Workshop – Discussion at MC Meeting Cesis, spring 2019
Working Group 3 – Improve society-science-policy interface
› Citizen Science and Open Science
Topics in focus
Working Group 3 – Improve society-science-policy interface
› Citizen Science and Open Science
Topics in focus
https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/citizen_science_recomendations.pdf
Working Group 3 – Improve society-science-policy interface
› Citizen Science and Environmental Reporting
Topics in focus
Links
To match better policy needs and others:
The Platform for Sharing, Initiating, and Learning Citizen Science in Europe
› Providing resources
› Engaging stakeholders
› Contribution to
sustainable
development
The European Commission’s scienceand knowledge service
Joint Research Centre
Citizen Science – selected highlights from relevant EC activities
Sven Schade
Contributors include: Marina Manzoni, Jean Dusart, Fabiano Spinelli, Irena Mitton, Roberto Sgnaolin,Chrisa Tsinaraki, Alexander Kotsev, Massimo Craglia…
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/eu4facts/audiovisual3
4
Environmental Knowledge Community (EKC): A
joint collaboration between five Commission
DG’s and the European Environment Agency to
investigate the relationship between people and
data – not only to monitor the state and trends
of the environment and relations to human
health, but also to help assess the impact and
effects of the implementation of environmental
related policy across the European Union (EU).
Citizen Science, not new at European level…… but interest increased!
The Citizen Science work of the EKC concentrates on specific policy areas with a view to
establish a 'proof of concept'. Given the already available knowledge resources, we agreed to
develop EKC Citizen Science demonstrators on protected areas and invasive alien
species.
5
Policy impacts
Outcomes: Environmental CS
Action Plan on nature, people and the economy
Actions to streamline environmental reporting
Actions on environmentalcompliance assurance
Action plan on pollinators
Open Science Agenda,pillar on Citizen Science
Communities of practice
Mobile apps and platforms
6
Policy impacts
Outcomes: Environmental CS
Action Plan on nature, people and the economy
Actions to streamline environmental reporting
Actions on environmentalcompliance assurance
Action plan on pollinators
Open Science Agenda,pillar on Citizen Science
Communities of practice
Mobile apps and platforms
6
Dedicated inventory and study
• Survey of Citizen Science activities that can support environmental policies in the EU
• Financial support by the European Commission (DG Environment)
• Scientific and technical support by the EC (DG JRC)
• Contractor: Bio Innovation Service, in collaboration with FundacionIbercivis and The Natural History Museum
7
Citizen Science support along the policy cycle
8
Methodology
814 projects considered
503 projects included
100 projects selected
45 projects responded 1 final report
9
Inventory: environmental fields covered
Cross-cutting
Noise
Environmental health
Soil
Animal welfare
Waste
Environmental risk10
Inventory: type of projects
All results soon to be published as:
European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment; European Commission, Joint Research Centre; Bio Innovation Service (2018): An inventory of citizen science activities for environmental policies. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) [Dataset] PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/jrc-citsci-10004
12
13
14
Source: Conclusions Chapter (31) “Citizen science to foster
innovation in open science, society and policy” by A. Bonn,
S. Hecker, A. Bowser, Z. Makuch, J. Vogel and M. Haklay
Next steps
Fostering CS standards
Taking policy related actions
Promoting re-use of data & methods
Next steps
Fostering CS standards
Taking policy related actions
Promoting re-use of data & methods
Priorities for the day (1/2)
Citizen Scientists and policy makers: a connecting ecosystem
1. How can Citizen Science communities be supported in connecting Citizen Science to
environment-related policy?
2. How to balance and shape the level of involvement of public authorities (such as EPAs)?
3. What are good practices to provide feedback about the use of CS contributions to
environmental monitoring and how do citizens perceive the use of their inputs?
4. How to measure the benefits of Environmental CS, not only in economic terms but also
in terms of transparency, behavioral change and active citizenship?
5. What can we do to ensure data credibility and are there implications on data ownership?
16
Priorities for the day (1/2)
Citizen Scientists and policy makers: a connecting ecosystem
1. How can Citizen Science communities be supported in connecting Citizen Science to
environment-related policy?
2. How to balance and shape the level of involvement of public authorities (such as EPAs)?
3. What are good practices to provide feedback about the use of CS contributions to
environmental monitoring and how do citizens perceive the use of their inputs?
4. How to measure the benefits of Environmental CS, not only in economic terms but also
in terms of transparency, behavioral change and active citizenship?
5. What can we do to ensure data credibility and are there implications on data ownership?
> 5.5.e, 5.5.f and 5.6 (and 5.4.b)
> 5.1, 5.2.d
> 5.3 and 5.4
> 5.5.d
> 5.1 (and 5.1.a) and 5.2
16
Priorities for the day (2/2)
CS across geographic scales: opportunities & challenges
1. What can we learn in terms of governance from existing CS platforms, esp. in respect
to the integration of CS data with other environmental information?
2. What is needed to successfully link the local and European dimension (and even
global), and which stakeholders should be involved in different roles?
3. Which capacities (skills and resources) are needed for different stakeholders? What can
I offer? What would I need from others? How do we get there?
4. What is good enough for making CS data usable for of public authorities?
5. How to enable interoperability (given different jurisdictions, data availability across
environmental domains, culture, geographic scale)?
6. Which role might Artificial Intelligence and Earth Observation play to make CS more
relevant for environmental monitoring and reporting?17
Priorities for the day (2/2)
CS across geographic scales: opportunities & challenges
1. What can we learn in terms of governance from existing CS platforms, esp. in respect
to the integration of CS data with other environmental information?
2. What is needed to successfully link the local and European dimension (and even
global), and which stakeholders should be involved in different roles?
3. Which capacities (skills and resources) are needed for different stakeholders? What can
I offer? What would I need from others? How do we get there?
4. What is good enough for making CS data usable for of public authorities?
5. How to enable interoperability (given different jurisdictions, data availability across
environmental domains, culture, geographic scale)?
6. Which role might Artificial Intelligence and Earth Observation play to make CS more
relevant for environmental monitoring and reporting?
> 5.2 and 5.4
> 5.5
> 5.6 and 5.5
> 5.1 (and 5.2)
> 5.2 (and 5.5)
> 5.5.c17
Ready to go!
18
EU environmental reporting: towards a paradigm shift
Elena Montani
Workshop, Ispra – 22 November 2018
EU environmental reporting: current information flow
Streamlining and simplifying reporting
New approach - towards a paradigm shift
Towards a new approach to:
• Increase transparency and accountability at national level
• Reduce administrative burden
• Use modern technologies more effectively
• Improve the evidence base
(e.g., in legislation, shift from "reporting" to obligations on “Information to the public”)
Example: Ireland’s Environment
• Award winning environmental
information portal
• Good practice: integrated, easy to use and comprehensive
• Significant efficiency gains, e.g. the time needed for reporting under the Industrial Emission Directive was reduced from 6 months (in 2010) to half a day (in 2012).
© Irish EPA
Main ongoing initiatives
• Actions to streamline environmental reporting ((COM(2017)312) + Fitness Check evaluation (SWD(2017)230) )
• Regulation on the alignment of environmental reporting (COM(2018)381)
• 10 env. laws aligned + proposals
on drinking water, POPs, water re-use and single use plastics applying a “new approach“
10 ACTIONS
1 Amend legislation
2 Change reporting (without changing legislation) - Rolling Work Programme 2018-2020
3 Modernise e-Reporting
4 Develop test tools for harvesting
5 Guidance for national environment information systems
6 Promote use of spatial data (INSPIRE application)
7 Better use of Copernicus data
8 Promote citizen science
9 Cooperate with other thematic areas (e.g. climate, statistics)
10 Wider international streamlining
Actions to streamline environmental reporting
Action 8 to streamline reporting
• Promote the wider use of citizen science to complement environmental reporting
• CS as a promising source of information and data
• cost-effective and useful in providing early warnings
• increases awareness and empowers people
• However, CS data not (yet) used widely for official
environmental monitoring and reporting
• Final objective: Stepwise actions leading to the development of guidelines in 2019
Roadmap for Action 8 (Guidelines)
Jan-June 2018
•Inventory
July-Oct 2018
•Analysis of inventory
Nov 2018 •Draft Skeleton Guidelines
Nov 2018-June 2019
•Consultation with stakeholders (Skeleton + draft Guidelines)
July 2019 •Revised guidelines+internal (Comm) consultation
Structure Skeleton Guidelines
Background and concepts
Opportunities/Challenges/Benefits
Examples of current practices
Lessons learnt (from inventory)
Recommendations
Conclusions & next steps
Extracts (1): Scope of the Guidelines
• Overview of the EU environmental citizen science landscape and practices
• Share good practices and lessons learnt in how CS & EU policies can support each other
• Highlight main potentials and challenges
• Targeted recommendations for exploiting the full potential of CS in environmental monitoring, to:
• Member States and local authorities
• EU policy makers
• Researchers
• Citizen science communities
Extracts (2): Main challenges
• Long-time scales and resources needed
• Resistance from public authorities, incl. perceived data quality concern
• Difficulty in identifying relevant policy linkages
• Involvement of scientific community
• Feedback and acknowledgement
• Data heterogeneity and data integration (official vs Citizen Science data)
• Privacy and ownership issues
• Governance across different levels
• Lack of guidance
Extracts (3): Main (potential) benefits
• Improved knowledge base
• Timely
• Reliable
• Fit-for-purpose
• Inclusiveness
• Better value for money
• Empowerment: more accountable, informed, open society
• Creation of networks and partnerships
• More inclusive and open research
Lessons learnt from current practices
• CS can underpin environmental policy, incl. monitoring SDGs
• Factors increasing policy uptake:
• Government support
• Facilitating citizen engagement
• Scientific excellence
• Sustainable business models
• NGOs are key actors of environmental CS
• A continuum of CS approaches to support policy
First set of recommendations: for discussion this afternoon!
Bridge the gaps between policy, scientists and the public
Provide standards for data quality and ensure interoperability
Track the use of citizen science data by end-users and guarantee policy feedback
Match-making data needs with available resources
Maximise the potential of unexploited initiatives
Promote technical and financial sustainability of projects
Next steps
Draft Guidelines (taking into account today’s discussion)
Consultations with stakeholders (incl. ECSA, MSs, EPAs)
Revised Guidelines and internal (Commission) consultation
Publication of Guidelines as Commission Staff Working Document (by end 2019)
EPA NETWORK
INTEREST GROUP ON CITIZEN SCIENCE
JOSE MIGUEL RUBIO IGLESIAS (EEA) ON BEHALF OF THE INTEREST GROUP ON CITIZEN SCIENCE
EPA NETWORK
Workshop on Citizen Science and Environmental Monitoring: Benefits and Challenges – 22/11/2018
Interest Group on Citizen Science
• EPA Network
Informal group of Heads and Directors of EPAs and similar bodies across Europe
Meet in Plenary twice a year
A number of Interest Groups look in detail on specific issues of interest
• Interest Group on Citizen Science
Established in 2014
Objective: To achieve a greater understanding how Citizen Science can deliver on EPA’s objectives through: - Sharing good practice and assist each other identifying and delivering successful Citizen Science projects
- Exploring how CS can go beyond data acquisition and empower citizens to take sound environmental decisions
Current members from 13 EPAs and EEA: BE-FL, CH, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, IE, NL, MT, SK, UK-EN, UK-SC Current co-chairs: EEA and RIVM (the Netherlands)
Meet annually (+ webinars – next 12/12)
IGCS members are involved in a number of CS networks and projects Air Quality, Waste, Biodiversity, Water Quality, Environmental Compliance, Education and
Awareness
Interest Group on Citizen Science
Interest Group on Citizen Science
• Some reflections on the role of Citizen Science in EPAs work Long story in EPAs (e.g. rainfall measurements)
Opportunities from new technologies
Key roles:
Identify and gather further evidence on emerging and existing issues
Provide recognition and gain trust in EPAs through public participation
Empower citizens to make sound environmental decision (e.g. local level)
EPAs drive some projects but also build on existing communities
EPAs as facilitators (data management & infrastructure, quality standards and procedures)
Data assimilation and timely feedback are key challenges
Several national strategies and guidelines on the use of CS by EPAs already available
SEPA, UKEOF, RIVM, German EPA, etc.
• IGCS Work Programme
Endorsed in September 2018 (EPA Network Plenary)
Rolling nature, to be reviewed annually
Three main working areas: 1) CS as an instrument to gather evidence for environmental policy development and implementation
- Citizen Science and Environmental Reporting (i.e. guidelines)
- Citizen Science and Environmental Compliance
- Sustainable Development Goals
2) The role of EPAs in contributing to citizen engagement and empowerment through CS
3) Knowledge and Information Exchange on Citizen Science activities
- Knowledge exchange document (repository of EPA´s good practices)
Interest Group on Citizen Science
• Next IGCS face-to-face meeting (23-24 May 2019, Zürich, CH)
Main topics:
CS contribution to Sustainable Development Goals
Citizen empowerment
CS and Environmental Monitoring
• IGCS contribution to the guidelines could be particularly oriented towards
Gathering additional national and local CS activities
Reflecting on EPAs strategic approaches in using CS to achieve their mission
Discussing benefits and challenges from EPA perspective
Analysing possible governance and roles
Interest Group on Citizen Science
Pan-European Citizen Science initiative launched by the EPA Network in spring 2018
EEA (overall coordination) and 11 EPAs (+ observers)
“What are the effective ways of using Citizen Science to change behaviour of people in and around schools with regard to their own actions that influence air quality?”
Inspired by Curieuze Neuzen projects in Antwerp (2016) and Flanders (2018)
EPAs to run the related activities within their own constituencies
Minimum requirements agreed during October 2018 meeting: NO2 passive samplers, two at the same location
Street canyon in front of school/school yard, minimum one school per city
Four week campaign (spring or early autumn)
Focus on patterns rather than on absolute concentrations
EEA will prepare a proposal for common guidance based on EPAs input and a web portal
Next meetings in January 2019, possibly also in May 2019 back-to-back to IGCS meeting
EPA Network Initiative on Air Quality and Citizen Science
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
JOSE RUBIO (EEA)
ON BEHALF OF THE INTEREST GROUP ON CITIZEN SCIENCE
7th INSPIRE MIG meeting – Brussels, 7.12.2017
pibinko.org, citizen science and environmental monitoring
5. Wanto to know more? Below is the pibinko.org Autumn ‘18 tour (http://www.pibinko.org/calendar)
write to [email protected] & keep updated on our projects http://www.pibinko.org/notizie
1. since early 1994, external relationship to JRC and EU (EMSL, IPSC, IES, INSPIRE). Some involvement in FP3, FP4, FP7, HORIZON2020.
2. Showcase: BuioMetria Partecipativa, M(‘)appare format, Farma Valley Community Map, Metalliferous Hills Jug Band
3. Other stakeholders engaged: NGOs (15), CNR (1), University (1), Municipalities (2), Schools (4), Natural reserves (4)
4. What do we need? ...we have some best practice to share (and some areas where we can use support)
22-11 6.50AM – Radio Popolare Milano - 2.30PM – PoliMI 23-11 8PM – Torino – Live with Etruschi from Lakota @Spazio MRF 1-12 – Madrid (tba)
5-12 – 10AM Radio Popolare Milano + live in Milano (tba) 12-12 Grosseto
14, 15, 16-12 – 3rd Farma Valley Winter Fest