Mapping the contribution of community and citizen science: from global to local scales

AbstractThe field of participatory community and citizen science refers to a broad range of activities where information is collected by members of the public, often as volunteers. Supporting these initiatives and facilitating the re-usability of data has great potential to assist environmental and socio-cultural objectives worldwide. In response, many new technologies are being developed from bespoke Apps for discrete projects, to image classification methods for analysis, and global platforms for the storage and sharing of observations. At the same time, there has been much discussion around the further potential of participatory science to fill spatial and temporal information gaps, and yet relatively little attention to mapping the contributions of the field or understanding the drivers of participation upon which it depends. Doing so has the potential to assist the sector with its own needs, which may include engaging further with the wider public and the communication of results to maintain or secure scarce funding or attract new members to existing groups and projects. Data visualisation and analysis tools present further opportunities that might support the sector by providing interpretation and reporting functions that recognise and respect its intended use. Accounting for these bottom-up aspects is similarly needed to identify and map the contributions of community and citizen science. This requires a considerably more nuanced, contextualised and locally grounded approach than merely aggregation against pre-established indicators such as those used by the Convention on Biodiversity or Sustainable Development Goals. Catering for both local and global evaluation and reporting contexts presents a further area of opportunity and innovation that is highly relevant to the standardisation of metrics discourse. In this paper we illustrate these principles with examples from geographic information observatories and retrieval systems that support community and citizen science initiatives and conclude with an overview of recent initiatives to map the contributions of this sector in Aotearoa New Zealand.