Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.
ITS2.10/CL0.1.14 | Promoting the understanding of urban climate and potential climate change hazard through citizen science EU projects, e.g. I-CHANGE and AGORA
EDI
Promoting the understanding of urban climate and potential climate change hazard through citizen science EU projects, e.g. I-CHANGE and AGORA
Convener: Pinhas Alpert | Co-conveners: Yoav RubinECSECS, Massimo Milelli, Paola Mercogliano
Citizen science is a powerful tool for promoting the understanding of urban climate and increase awareness on potential climate change hazards. By engaging citizens in scientific research and data collection, we can harness the collective power of communities to gather valuable information and contribute to our knowledge of urban climate dynamics but also to define appropriate adaptation strategies. Citizens can be trained to collect different data, using simple, low-cost monitoring tools and to define requirement for definition of local adaptation measures. Another unconventional source of data is opportunistic observations from crowdsourcing and the cellular infrastructure which is abundant around cities. All these data sources can be aggregated and analysed to identify trends, patterns, and potential climate change hazards specific to urban areas. Engaging citizens in this process fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility for their environment while also increasing support to the adaptation mission. By actively participating in data collection and training activities, citizens gain first-hand experience of how climate affect their daily lives and communities. One way to promote this understanding is by organizing citizen science projects focused on monitoring and documenting climate variables within urban environments but also to create digital environment and tools improving their knowledge on climate science (for example by reducing disinformation). The H2020 projects I-CHANGE (Individual Change of HAbits Needed for Green European transition) and AGORA (A Gathering place to cO-design and co-cReate Adaptation) have exactly this purpose.
This session encourages submissions covering citizen science, crowdsourcing, and urban-climate informatics but also the sharing of best practices aiming to include citizens in the European adaptation mission.