RPAS – hub in Citizen Science network

Smartphone technology, employing mobile apps, has positively influenced the development of Citizen Science (CS) over the last years. It is possible that another technology – RPAS (UAV, UAS, drones) – will play a similar role, with applications in several domains. The use of RPAS in CS is an emerging practice, which is proved by the existence of only three literature reviews on this topic and of only 12 studies addressing the use of technology mentioned in CS projects by the volunteers. The Systematic Review (SR) developed represents the basis of a participatory Living Systematic Review (LSR), updated every twelve months and available at https://rpas-in-cs-lsr-cgeoreg.hub.arcgis.com. This will present to the interested community the summarized (categories of study, fields of use, level of volunteer engagement, etc.) and updated image of the mentioned topic. Additionally, it allows the volunteers to signal CS studies or projects and to be part of the team that reviews the subsequent versions. Starting from the existing literature, we propose a scale of the level of volunteer engagement in CS projects using RPAS, detailing the activities developed. The identified CS projects were analyzed by relating them to the proposed scale. In addition, evolutionary perspectives were discussed in terms of using RPAS in CS projects. In conclusion, the research proposes an LSR (the second outside the medical sciences) meant to continuously update the new partnership between CS and RPAS with real development perspectives.