Why is it relevant?
Citizen Observatories (also known as Citizens’ Observatories) have been around since the early 2010s. Many earlier initiatives can be characterised as Citizen Observatories, even if they did not use that term. There is therefore a sizable body of experience and examples that we can now learn from.
What is the history of Citizen Observatories?
Although Citizen Observatories have only existed under that name since the early 2010s, they have a rich and detailed history, which has resulted in the current Citizen Observatory landscape. Through various streams of funding, a wide variety of Citizen Observatories, focusing on various issues, have been set up over the past decades.
To be able to report on the landscape of Citizen Observatories in Europe, the WeObserve project compiled a list of the Citizen Observatories that were funded under the EU FP7 and Horizon 2020 programmes.
These Citizen Observatories have been mapped on the WeObserve website in a Citizen Observatory Landscape Map that continues to grow as other practitioners and initiative leaders add their own Citizen Observatory initiatives to the picture. It illustrates the growing range of Citizen Observatories across Europe and can be filtered to highlight different aspects such as project, entity, domain, status, scope and/or funding.
Screenshot of the CO Landscape Map on the WeObserve Knowledge Hub (20/11/2020)
A comprehensive list of the Citizen Observatories and Citizen Observatory-type projects funded by the EU through the FP7 and Horizon 2020 programmes is shown in the table below. The list was taken from the “D2.9 Roadmap for the uptake of the Citizen Observatory knowledge base” (WeObserve Consortium, 2021).
| FP7-funded | Focus | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| COBWEB | Biosphere monitoring | 2012-2016 |
| OMNISCIENTIS | Odour monitoring | 2012-2014 |
| CITI-SENSE | Air pollution monitoring | 2012-2016 |
| WeSenseIt | Flood and drought monitoring | 2012-2016 |
| Citclops | Coastal and marine water quality monitoring | 2012-2015 |
| H2020-funded | Focus | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Making Sense | Open design and digital maker practices, DIY environmental monitoring, air, water, soil and sound pollution | 2015-2017 |
| CAPTOR | Combining citizen science, collaborative networks and environmental grassroots social activism to raise awareness and find solutions to the air pollution problem | 2016-2018 |
| hackAIR | Development of an open technology toolkit for Citizens’ Observatories focusing on air quality | 2016-2018 |
| Ground Truth 2.0 | Flood risk management, environmental quality of life, land and natural resources management, sustainable livelihoods, climate change adaptation |
2016-2019 |
| GROW Observatory | Soil, land use, crop planting and water resources | 2016-2019 |
| LandSense | Land use and land cover monitoring | 2016-2020 |
| Scent | Water supply and quality, flood risks | 2016-2019 |
| SMURBS (ERA-Planet) | Integration of EO and Citizen Observations for a common approach to enhance urban environmental and societal resilience | 2017-2021 |
| WeObserve | Knowledge consolidation and mainstreaming of Citizen Observatories | 2017-2021 |
| DNoses | Odour monitoring | 2018-2021 |
| Monocle | Water quality monitoring | 2018-2022 |
| CitieS-Health | Assessing urban air and noise pollution and their links to health impacts | 2019-2021 |
| MICS | Measuring impacts of citizen science, nature-based solutions, water quality and biodiversity | 2019-2021 |
| WeCount | Urban road transport monitoring | 2019-2021 |
| TeRRIFICA | Adaptation processes to climate change through living labs, crowd-mapping and co-design | 2019-2022 |
| Cos4CLOUD | Interoperability and integration of Citizen Observatory technology and data with the European Open Science Cloud | 2019-2023 |
| DIONE | Complementing EO data with farmer-based monitoring to inform CAP regulations and decision-making at farm level | 2020-2022 |
| FRAMEwork | Citizen Observatory for monitoring biodiversity in farmland landscapes | 2020-2025 |
Looking at the historical pathway from the first Citizen Observatories funded by the European Union, there are now also a range of examples supported by national funding schemes (e.g. in Spain and the Netherlands) and by private sector funding (e.g. Coca Cola Foundation).
Useful Resources
PROJECT REPORTS: From our research into the EU Landscape of Citizen Observatories within the WeObserve project, we produced three reports: a report that outlines frameworks which can be used to describe and compare Citizen Observatories, a report on the insights from the experiences of Citizen Observatories, and a Roadmap report that sets the stage for future Citizen Observatories.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATION: “Lessons from the WeObserve project to strengthen awareness, acceptability and sustainability of Citizen Observatories in Europe” – Presentation at the virtual ECSA conference 2020.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATION: “New Community Activity on Citizens’ Observatories and Crowdsourcing” – Presentation at the Citizen GEOSS Workshop in St Petersburg (Russia), 8 November 2016, by José Miguel Rubio Iglesias.
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This work by parties of the WeObserve consortium is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 