Citizen Science
How citizen science can fill data gaps for the SDGs
Dilek Fraisl discusses how citizen science data can be harnessed to contribute to effective evidence-based policymaking and monitoring progress towards all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Moisture matters! What’s the impact of water thresholds and soil characteristics?
IIASA researcher Rastislav Skalsky looks at the importance of soil, its moisture content, and how to measure it, relating to his work with the GROW Observatory.
Monitoring urban greenspace with mobile phones
IIASA researchers are actively contributing to raising awareness of the importance of urban forests for quality of life through the LandSense project.
Crowdsourcing for food security
The Geo-wiki project works to develop a global field size dataset with the help of the public.
Bringing satellite data down to Earth
Free access to satellite data is important, but with massive data amounts, innovation is needed to make these data sets accessible and usable beyond experts.
From the Himalayas to the Andes: Crowdsourced disaster risk mapping
A unique collaboration finds common ground on flood risk resilience challenges in Nepal, Mexico, and Peru.
What will it take to trust scientific data from citizens?
We trust the information that citizens supply about other public activities—so why don’t scientists and public authorities trust the data they are providing via citizen science campaigns?
New portal links local and global flood data
A new portal provides flood risk information globally and allows for information exchange.
Picture Pile: Gaming for Science
The crowdsourcing game Picture Pile has reached half its goal of sorting 5 million satellite images. Why IIASA researchers need your help to finish the rest.
Beating the heat with more data on urban form and function
A new project aims to create an open source database to better understand the urban heat island effect in a warming world.
Beyond sharing Earth observations
In a new Correspondence published in the journal Nature, IIASA researchers Ian McCallum and Linda See argue for better sharing of satellite validation data, to improve our understanding of global land cover.
Interview: Taking Geo-Wiki to the ground
Steffen Fritz has just been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant to fund a research project on crowdsourcing and ground data collection on land-use and land cover. In this interview he talks about his plans for the new project, CrowdLand. What’s the problem with current...
How games can help science: Introducing Cropland Capture
By Linda See, Research Scholar, IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program On a recent rush hour train ride in London I looked around to see just about everybody absorbed in their mobile phone or tablet. This in itself is not that unusual. But when I snooped...
Mapping the world with crowdsourcing
By Linda See, Research Scholar, IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Humans have a long history of map-making that can be traced back to cave paintings older than 20,000 years, and detailed maps made by the ancient Romans, Greeks, and Chinese. These maps...