Content by Stefanie Schuerz, Zentrum für Soziale Innovation GmbH
Introduction
On 25th November 2024 we organised a matchmaking workshop to bring together researchers and NGOs with a focus on the Danube River Basin (DRB), and citizen science practitioners with relevant interests and experiences, to find new ways of mobilising science and society to restore the DRB and to explore routes to collective action. This documentation first outlines the information shared within the workshop on citizen science and relevant methodologies related to river ecology and ecosystem health. It then summarises the results of the collaborations that took place during the event.
Guest Speakers:
Muki Haklay (ECS): Citizen science and the eu-citizen.science platform
Muki Haklay is a professor at UCL, London, and team lead at the Learning Planet Institute in Paris. He has been working on participatory research for 25 years, covering topics such as participatory mapping and citizen science. He currently works at the European Citizen Science Academy. He is also on the board of the European Citizen Science Association.
Eva Manzenreiter (DANUBE4all): Sediment analysis
Eva Manzenreiter is a Master student of Civil Engineering and Water Management at BOKU University and a student assistant at BOKU University in the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and River Research (IWA). In this capacity, she has been working on a Citizen Science Toolbox that forms a core output of the Danube4All project.
Sara Blanco Ramirez (CrowdWater): Flood and drought monitoring
Sara Blanco Ramirez is a PhD student in the Department of Geography at the University of Zurich. Her research focuses on the potential value of different citizen science approaches for water quality monitoring, derived from her experiences with projects and community groups in Central America and her current research within the CrowdWater project.
Vera Knook (River Collective): Collective river stewardship
Vera Knook initiated the River Collective in 2020 through organising the first Students for Rivers Camp to bring together students from a wide range of disciplines for the protection of rivers. The River Collective now runs a yearly camp, as well as the yearly worldwide citizen science event The Home River Bioblitz. Besides running this NGO, Vera spends a lot of time on rivers in Europe and Peru as a kayak and raft guide.
Introduction and objectives
The Danube is Europe’s second-longest river, stretching 2,850 kilometers from its source in the Black Forest to the shores of the Black Sea. In total, the Danube River Basin (DRB) and its waters underpin the diverse riverine habitats and ecosystems of 20 European countries. Because of its immense environmental, cultural and economic importance, both local and international cooperation are essential to safeguard the DRB and its ecosystems.
In our matchmaking workshop we brought together scientists doing research related to Danube River Basin ecosystems and Citizen Science practitioners, to find new ways to collaborate on the common goal of improving the Danube river’s ecological status, biodiversity and ecosystem connectivity. The goals of the workshop were for participants to gain insights into research in the DRB and into citizen science, but also to find new collaboration partners to initiate or scale citizen science activities in the DRB, and concretise steps for future citizen science activities.
To set up the co-design processes planned to take place in the context of the workshop, time was initially reserved to lay some groundwork and provide important information and inspiration for potential collaborations. This included some information on DANUBE4all, citizen science and the ECS project, and specific methodologies suitable to be employed in the Danube River Basin. Following these inputs, the group was invited to participate in a brainwalk, adding their insights to six different questions pertaining to their previous experience and potential future collaborative endeavours. The answers to these questions were then clustered in breakout rooms and presented to the plenary. Following this, participants were asked to bring forward potential research topics and find each other in groups to outline project plans. These plans were once again introduced to the plenary, with the opportunity to follow up on these plans within and beyond the groups.
In the following, the different learnings from each of these sessions will be summarised.
In terms of participant profiles, we invited anyone to join us who...
was involved in research and/or citizen science initiatives in the Danube River Basin
wanted to contribute to the health and resilience of the ecosystems of the Danube River Basin
was involved in a citizen science or other research initiative in the Danube River Basin that they would like to expand
was looking for new partners to implement (citizen) science projects or activities connected to the Danube River Basin
wanted to start implementing citizen science in their research related to ecosystem and river restoration, but didn’t know where to start
or wanted to get involved in citizen science in the Danube River Basin.
Workshop Summary
Introductions and pitch presentations
DANUBE4all was presented by Stefanie Schuerz. It is an EU ‘Lighthouse Initiative’ in support of the EU Mission “Restore our ocean and waters by 2030". The vision of DANUBE4all is to jointly work on sustainable and interdisciplinary restoration pathways for the Danube River Basin. This builds on an underlying science-to-people approach (i.e., societal co-creation), which actively integrates inhabitants’ interests and empowers Danube stakeholders, from local communities, SMEs, investors, policy makers and the business sector. The main output of DANUBE4all is the Danube Basin Restoration Action Plan, which will be an important basis for the next update of the Danube and national River Basin Management Plans (DRBMP), the Danube Flood Risk Management Plans and the future National Restoration Plans.
Citizen science was introduced by Muki Haklay, who pointed out how it is positioned as a part of open science within the EU policy framing. It can be described as the voluntary participation of non-professional scientists in research and innovation at different stages of the process and at different levels of engagement, from shaping research agendas and policies, to gathering, processing and analysing data, and assessing the outcomes of research (1). Muki Haklay(2) proposes different modes of citizen science, ranging from crowdsourcing, where citizens work as sensors, to “extreme citizen science”, which is a highly collaborative form of science where citizens are involved in the process from the phase of problem definition to data collection and analysis, and potentially beyond. Following Beck et. al (3), there are a number of potential benefits to citizen science methodologies, which include: 1) using the wisdom of the crowd to mitigate individual errors or biases and use the sum of individual judgements; 2) leveraging crowd volume to collect more data or perform more activities, or do so faster; 3) community production enables solving complex problems and managing trade-offs; 4) user crowd involvement allows access to different types of knowledge and experts-by-experience; and 5) broadly broadcasting calls for contribution enables participants with the required knowledge to self-select for participation.
Eva Manzenreiter introduced an approach to sediment and erosion monitoring currently in development within the DANUBE4all project. With the aims of empowering local communities, raising awareness and promoting river literacy, the team at BOKU seeks to engage and mobilise the public on the topic of river connectivity via a broad swath of potential methodologies. So far, two approaches have been explored in more depth:
Employing smartphones to monitor for changes in sediments, hydromorphology, and overall erosion. To this end, smartphone stands would be deployed at fixed locations and citizens invited to take pictures and share them for analysis.
A toolbox is currently in development that contains various instruments to support sediment and velocity analysis, cross-section geometry, as well as hydromorphological monitoring.
These tools are being tested by professional and citizen scientists to ensure their ease of use and the quality of the data generated. Once the developed prototypes have been tested, routes to making them available to a wider public will be explored.
Sara Blanco Ramirez presented the flood and drought monitoring enabled by the Crowdwater app, which collects observations on water quantity and quality, most notably water level data via physical and virtual staff gauge; qualitative data on soil moisture; data on the dynamics of temporary streams (free flowing/trickling/standing water, isolated pools, damp streambed); data on plastic pollution in and around water bodies; and general data on various watercourses. Data is published openly in a data overview. Crowdwater is based on rigorous testing, exploring the accuracy of the data and how well people can observe hydrological variables, the value of the data and Crowdwater’s usefulness for hydrological models, as well as the type of data really needed. Via continuous and varied measurements, Crowdwater aims to improve the prediction of hydrological events such as drought or flooding. Crowdwater collects data worldwide and in many different languages.
Vera Knook introduced the River Collective and its approach to collective river stewardship. Its yearly Home River Bioblitz (HRB) invites citizen scientists caring about rivers and other water bodies around the world to go out and explore what lives in and around their local rivers, collecting biodiversity data and uploading it to iNaturalist. While the events are locally organised, the HRB-team supports local leaders through workshops and online sessions. The HRB deepens participants’ understanding of these crucial ecosystems, strengthens local communities to take ownership of their rivers, and empowers them to protect them, while connecting them with a broader global community of river stewards. As an event, the HRB helps increase awareness around threats faced by local ecosystems and lets communities find a voice to advocate for their preservation.
Brainwalk on previous experiences
For the brainwalk, we posed a total of six questions about participants’ overall experiences. Giving them first some time to individually answer each question, they were subsequently put into breakout groups to cluster responses and present them to the plenary. The results are detailed below:
What experiences do you have with Citizen Science?
Responses were broadly grouped into three categories: Field work contained any practical work with citizen science, from volunteering themselves to coordinating work directly with volunteers. Design and coordination pertained specifically to higher-level coordination of citizen science projects and activities. Raising awareness was the third category of activity. Most mentioned experiences were related to water and environmental health and pollution, but urban planning was brought up as well.
What experiences do you have with research in the Danube River Basin?
Responses here were grouped into DANUBE4all-related experiences, projects related to monitoring plastics (specifically in relation to Plastic Pirates – Go Europe! and Plastic Cup), a project related to drinkable rivers, and broader experiences such as connectivity assessment and collecting narratives about the environment.
What issue or topic would you like to work on?
Here, four broad categories could be found in water biodiversity (regarding eDNA and bioacoustic monitoring), water quality (regarding also more specifically pesticides and plastic pollution), hydromorphology (in terms of bedrock exposure and sediment management), and social interaction (in terms of accessibility of urban rivers and environmental stewardship). In terms of overarching themes, climate change, database harmonisation, and practical approaches to contributing were identified.
What changes would you like to achieve in the Danube River Basis?
These could be broadly grouped into bridging traditional science and citizen science, e.g. for water quality and ecosystem monitoring; supporting environmental stewardship and making the DRB’s management community-led, with people understanding the river as a living, complex and vital system; and making the river healthier for current and future generations, from responsible water use to plastic management to improved connectivity for fish and sediments.
What people / stakeholder groups would you like to work with?
Participants had very broad stakeholder groups in mind, from artists to journalists to research institutions, civic organisations, regional authorities, to teachers and educators and finally to industry representatives, from tourism to fishers.
What are potentially interesting funding opportunities (smaller and larger scale)?
Currently available funding streams include:
- The IMPETUS accelerator
- The REINFORCING open calls
- The ScienceUs project
- The LIFE programme, with citizen science included as a "communication activity"
In addition, involving local/regional companies in river cleanups accompanied with teambuilding and synergies with authorities were mentioned.
Collaboration on project proposals
Following the brainwalk, the workshop participants were invited to propose topics to work on in more detail. In total, five topics were brought forward, of which three were chosen to elaborate following a grid provided by the workshop organisers. The topics are described in the following.
Topic 1: Public engagement to restore human-nature relationships
This topic is aimed at creating co-ownership and stewardship of urban rivers, by on the one hand building knowledge related to rivers (awareness-raising) and on the other engaging the community in activities such as river cleanups. Through this, people are expected to develop an emotional attachment to the river. There are a lot of existing activities that can be drawn upon or scaled up to achieve this, including river walks, water sport cleanups, urban swimming, adopting a section of the river, the Riversaver School Network, the Blue Schools initiative, and Plastic Pirates. There are also ongoing river activities on the German Elba that could be adapted to the city-bound parts of the Danube river. Community-led flood adaptation can also serve as an inspiration.
To achieve the goals of such a project, participants found that it would be helpful to design indicators to track community resilience and its connection to the river ecosystem, that is, to include a monitoring component. Train-the-trainer activities with school teachers to educate and build capacity among students was also seen as a valuable component, as were art-based methods, visual communication and interactive events, to make activities more accessible to a broader audience.
Success was seen as tied to the longevity and adaptability of any such project, and how simple and enjoyable it would be for its participants. While summer cleanups were seen as a good start, winter activities by the river were also explored as an important addition leading to year-round engagement with the river ecosystem.
In terms of more concrete first steps, the group mentioned the need to gain a better understanding of the target group and to observe and evaluate existing practices in riverside settlements to identify suitable activities. Relevant stakeholder groups could be water sport enthusiasts, young people and school children as well as their teachers, community organisations that allow for potential long-term collaboration, and retirees, who would also be suited to support citizen science monitoring. Collaboration partners would need to be actively looked for, including other initiatives and artists.
Funding could be acquired e.g. from education ministries in pilot countries, from ProBleu, from Erasmus, and from Horizon calls to support the EU’s Mission Ocean.
In terms of potential risks and challenges, the group pointed out the overall difficulty in developing sustainable and continuous action, how citizen science was currently in a tenuous position, that partners might show low commitment and drop out again, that a lot of people actually do not have access to rivers, and that a transition from exploiting the river to interacting with it mutually takes a lot of time, which such an action might not have.
Topic 2: Bioacoustic monitoring
This topic aims to use new technologies and make nature parks aware of the possible use of bioacoustic monitoring for species detection, in a combination of citizen science efforts with AI systems. This could be done on land, on or below water, and in the air, and it would be employed to fill a gap in the monitoring of species in nature parks. There are already quite some initiatives with similar aims whose experiences could be drawn upon, like the Home River BioBlitz, the Watch Out project, and the Danube Dragon Conversation project. BirdNET trains AI to identify bird song from other sources of sound and could serve as a resource and as a template for other bioacoustic monitoring projects.
To succeed in this project, it would be necessary to understand what the data will be used for, like a direct analysis and mapping of results that feed into statistical data on ecosystem fauna. For broader demonstration, dissemination, and awareness-raising, artistic approaches could also be included in the project efforts. Furthermore, all Danube countries and protected areas of the Danube River Basin would need to be covered with this monitoring approach, and project continuity needs to be ascertained. The data collected needs to be of high quality, and it must be possible for the implementation of bioacoustic monitoring to be done locally, individually, and at low cost.
Resources for such a project would be available in the context of DANUBE4all, although the LIFE programme and other Horizon Europe funding calls might also serve to support such efforts. Crucially, funding for IoT-devices (Internet of Things) must be found. DANUBE4all partners Danube Parks and Pulsaqua could collaborate on finding appropriate testing locations and developing low-cost continuous sensing using open AI, which could then be deployed in a citizen science collaboration between rangers and public visitors via pilot DIY kits.
Support could be sought from ornithological organisations, the River Collective in cooperation with the Home River BioBlitz, as well as artists to support broader communication efforts. In terms of risks, the technical side of the project might pose some challenges, such as placing devices safely in open nature, making sure they have enough power/battery, and ensuring their connectivity to data collectors, either via local networks or maybe employing text messages. Placing the devices and manually collecting the data might be too time consuming to be feasible.
Topic 3: DIY water quality monitoring
This topic aims to empower citizens to monitor the water quality of the Danube river, informing them about potentially poisonous components and pre-screening for elevated concentrations of chemical compounds. Here, collecting data from 15-25 sites on various parameters from transparency and turbidity to chemical and organic compounds over a period of about 1,5 years was defined as a feasible goal. Relevant groups to involve range from maker communities for building the sensors to local groups, schools and fishers for collecting samples, to university students for testing the samples. Water companies also must be engaged on the topic of what makes water “drinkable”.
For this project to succeed, local hosts would be helpful that engage with the community and support motivated volunteers. Data must be made accessible on a broad basis similarly to how Crowdwater shares its data, to be interpreted in a way for citizens to gain real insights into the quality of the water. This would also allow for the data to be used in campaigns with and for policy to ensure longer-term strategies for healthy aquatic ecosystems.
Potential risks and challenges come with the decentralisation of the process and the breadths of the involved areas, which might make it harder to keep the motivation of various partners and participants high over time, but also makes the communication of results a bit more complex. Similarly, the process of interpreting the data and identifying what potential impacts the found compounds might have on citizens is not entirely straightforward.
References:
1 European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Citizen Science – Elevating research and innovation through societal engagement, Publications Office of the European Union, 2020, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/624713
Haklay, M. 2012. Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge. In Citizen Science and Volunteered Geographic Information: Overview and Typology of Participation, pp. 105–122
Beck, S, Fraisl, D, Poetz, M, Sauermann, H. 2024. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Citizen Science—Synthesizing Five Paradigms of Citizen Involvement. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 9(1): 8, pp. 1–12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.691