Citizen science data in peer-reviewed publications: The Geo-Wiki experience

The role of citizen science in research is expanding, which often raises concerns about data quality. Recently, the Geo-Wiki team at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) has implemented two citizen science projects (e.g. FotoQuest Austria, Cropland Validation) focused on improving land use and land cover monitoring. In these projects, the team designed specific measures to enhance the quality of data provided by volunteers and in turn these citizen-driven results have led to peer-reviewed publications in key journals (e.g. Remote Sensing, Nature’s Scientific Data). As such, in this paper, we describe our methodology to improve data quality in citizen science projects and provide a series of recommendations on project design and implementation

Mapping Citizen Science Contributions to the SDGs

The SDGs reflect a data-driven and society-oriented framework that requires a collaborative action from all levels of society to achieve the future we want while leaving no one behind. Crucial to the success of this framework is timely, reliable and comprehensive data that are difficult to gather using traditional sources of data alone. Coupled with the traditional methods and other new sources of data such as Earth Observation (EO), citizen science has a great potential to address the data gaps and needs in the SDG framework. A recent study by Fraisl et al shows that citizen science data have the potential to contribute data to 33% of the SDG indicators. This session aims to introduce Citizen Science to the official statistics community and demonstrate the value of citizen science for monitoring the SDGs, drawing upon concrete examples that outline the use of citizen science data by NSOs and UN agencies. The challenges and barriers for the uptake of citizen science data for feeding into SDG monitoring processes will be discussed, and how we can bring it into the scope of official statistics through recognition by governments, national statistical offices (NSOs), the UN system, and other data producers and users, from the perspective of the representatives of all these stakeholders