Over the last decade, rapid advances in ICT, computing, communication technologies (e.g., smartphones and web 2.0 technologies), and a generally growing geo-literacy, have enabled non-specialists to participate in truly scientific endeavors. This so-called “Citizen Science”, as well as the related concepts of crowdsourcing and volunteered geographic information (VGI), support both fundamental research and societal applications, and come in many forms, such as observations of biodiversity, validation of remote sensing maps, or support of post-disaster response through smartphone-based provision of ground information or collective image-based damage mapping.
In the geosciences Citizen Science has also seen a growing importance, e.g., in the creation of reference data sets, training of models, or validation of mapping results. Contrasting the vast potential such approaches hold are challenges related to data accuracy and validation, spatial bias, sustainability of citizen science projects, or the maximizing of synergy between novel crowd-based approaches and traditional methodologies.
Recognizing the growing importance of Citizen Science as a new paradigm in research, and the unique opportunity it offers to tap into the enormous passion and good will of a wide community of citizens, papers are invited that highlight novel insights into the optimal use of citizen science approaches, their combination and integration with traditional methods, optimal and scientifically rigorous ways to train and steer a crowd contributing to a geoscience problem, communication aspects in citizen science, or the role these methods can play in education and in bringing science closer to society.