- Institute of Marine Science (ICM-CSIC), EMBIMOS , Barcelona, Spain
Citizen science in marine biodiversity monitoring encounters several challenges such as obtaining unstructured data which may lead to underestimate species presence or introduce spatial bias. In addition to those inherent to the marine environment. To address these challenges, efforts must be directed towards (1) enhancing participant engagement to increase the volume of data collected, and (2) developing methods to standardize the unstructured data obtained.
As of December 2024th, over 260.000 observations have been recorded during the course of four years by more than 870 volunteer participants documenting over 2900 species, including some historical observations, in the Coastal region of Catalonia, located in the northeast of Spain. These observations have been reported and validated in the citizen science observatory MINKA (minka-sdg.org).
This presentation will highlight the lessons learnt through the past four years, the opportunities and the remaining challenges to address.
How to cite: Companys, B., Alvarez, A., Salvador, X., Liñan, S., and Piera, J.: Citizen Science in marine biodiversity unstructured monitoring , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8787, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8787, 2025.