An interactive analysis of users, use and usability of phenological information

Phenology is the science that studies the timing of periodic plant and animal life cycle events, as well as their causes, interrelations, and variations in space and time. Phenological information has a plethora of use and hence of users. For example, this information is often used to study climate change because phenological timings respond to changes in environmental conditions. Besides this, phenological information helps to model the water, carbon and energy cycles, is necessary to monitor and manage natural and artificial man-made ecosystems and even supports nature lovers and public health practitioners. The well-established EGU session on “Phenology and seasonality in climate change” shows the diversity of phenological research and products and brings together multiple research communities: ecologists, agronomists, foresters, climatologists, geo-information and remote sensing scientists, and of course, citizen science experts. We believe that this diversity deserves attention and propose carrying out a first analysis of users, use and usability of phenological products by interacting with the participants of this EGU session. For this we will use a presentation software that allows posing questions to the audience and collecting their views in real-time. This presentation will then provide a better view of the phenological community, including their most commonly used data sources, tools, and needs. Special attention will be paid to identify major achievements and research and/or operational gaps that can help to define a phenological agenda for this new decade.