Data Management for Citizen Science Projects
Building capacity for integrated governance at the food-water-energy-nexus in cities on the water
Creating Interfaces explores socio-technical interfaces at the food-water-energy (FWE) nexus in cities near water. Aiming to increase urban sustainability, resilience, and quality of life, this project builds local capacity through innovative approaches in coordinated knowledge creation, governance and exchange.
A multi/transdisciplinary, international team representing natural and social sciences, humanities, engineering, data and computer sciences, urban planning as well as civil society and business actors conducts research on stakeholder interactions and decision-making in the FWE sectors. It explores data governance and investigates novel approaches to participatory knowledge generation and citizen science along with their implementation. The project helps to answer central questions surrounding the integration of novel citizen-driven knowledge creation into the governance process and urban infrastructure planning procedures. Common research frameworks and a close interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary cooperation provide a basis for comparative analysis and co-production of transformative knowledge.
The development of socio-technical interfaces and decision support tools is driven by the needs of stakeholders, the FWE actors, and members of the public following an Urban Living Lab framework. Users, as co-creators, test and evaluate creative solutions and ideas, e.g. citizen science tools and approaches.
52°North develops interoperable citizen science and decision support workflows for providing data collection and analysis functionality. This is part of different Urban Living Labs and Citizen Science approaches in the three partner cities: Tulcea (Romania), Wilmington (USA) and Slupsk (Poland). We evaluate existing Citizen Science concepts, advance the identified baseline components and contribute our findings to international standardization activities aimed at increased interoperability among Citizen Science projects. According to our partners’ specific requirements, we also customize identified tools and frameworks.
52°North’s activities in 2020 primarily centered on further developing the Citizen Science data collection tool. Whereas our developments in 2019 focussed on the evaluation of suitable solutions, the 2020 developments resulted in a first collection tool for local workshops in the partner cities.
We created an initial tool for the city of Slupsk, adjusted it according to their specific requirements in several iterations. In a second step, we derived a dedicated version for the city of Tulcea. We have not yet been able to conduct the local workshops as originally planned due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the evaluation of the tool will take place as part of the 2021 activities.
Project Partners
Coordinator: EIfER – Europäisches Institut für Energieforschung, Germany
University of Delaware, School of Public Policy and Administration, USA
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), USA
University of Warwick, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, United Kingdom
Pracownia Zrównoważonego Rozwoju (PZR), Poland
SweGreen, Sweden
Nicolaus Copernicus University Toruń, Institute of Sociology, Poland
Danube Delta National Institute for Research and Development (DDNI), Romania