Citizen science as a valuable tool in the monitoring of climate change – the example of DIY sensors

The aim of the speech is to present the approach of the SCORE project, in which in the network of 10 Coastal City Living Labs (CCLLs) researchers work to develop methods to increase participation from members of the public through low-cost technology – Do It Yourself (DIY) sensors and online platforms to promote awareness on local knowledge about environmental hazards, such as coastal, riverine and urban flash flooding, air quality deterioration, and shoreline erosion.

EC describes citizen science as ‘the non-professional involvement of volunteers in the scientific process, commonly in data collection’. Engagement of stakeholders take place throughout the whole process of the SCORE sensors monitoring. Initially, all CCLLs identified main environmental hazards. Then it was created the on-line platform with the SCORE Sensor Catalogue located at https://sensors.score-eu-project.eu/. All CCLLs organised the workshops during which were selected sensors from this catalogue, tailoring their choices to their respective local context and monitoring needs. The next phases were provided training to deployment, onboard registration on the SCORE ICT platform and sensors installation. The last phase of the process is the currently ongoing validation of the data.

To sum up, citizen science is a valuable tool for environmental monitoring which creates the opportunity for innovative approaches to data collection. In this project, low-cost sensors are employed by citizen scientists to gather data that is complementary to the high-quality data collected by institutional sensors. These easy to deploy sensors, often require additional validation to ensure their data is accurate and useful for scientific and policy-making purposes.