IAHS2022-528, updated on 22 Apr 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/iahs2022-528
IAHS-AISH Scientific Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY): on the application of a transdisciplinary framework for assessing citizen science projects addressing hydrological challenges

Fernando Nardi1,2, Christophe Cudennec3, Tommaso Abrate4, Antonio Annis1, Thaine H. Assumpção5, Alice H. Aubert6, Dominique Berod4, Alessio Maria Braccini7, Wouter Buytaert8, Antara Dasgupta9, David M. Hannah10, Maurizio Mazzoleni11, Maria J. Polo12, Øystein Sæbø13, Jan Seibert14, Flavia Tauro15, Rita Teutonico2, Stefan Uhlenbrook16, Cristina Wahrmann Vargas17, and Salvatore Grimaldi15
Fernando Nardi et al.
  • 1Water Resources Research and Documentation Centre (WARREDOC), University for Foreigners of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
  • 2Institute of Environment and College of Arts, Sciences & Education (CASE), Florida International University (FIU), Miami, Florida, US
  • 3UMR SAS, Institut Agro, INRAE, 35000 Rennes, France
  • 4World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Geneva, Switzerland
  • 5Integrated Water Systems and Governance, IHE Delft, Delft, the Netherlands
  • 6Department of Environmental Social Sciences, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland
  • 7Department of Economics, Engineering, Society and Business Organizations (DEIM), University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy
  • 8Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK
  • 9Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
  • 10School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston. Birmingham. B15 2TT UK
  • 11Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
  • 12Andalusian Institute for Earth System Research, University of Cordoba, Córdoba, Spain
  • 13Department of Information Systems, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
  • 14Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland and Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
  • 15Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest systems (DIBAF), University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy
  • 16International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Colombo, Sri Lanka
  • 17Hydrology Department of Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), San José, Costa Rica

Earth and water monitoring and observation systems provide open geo data to scientists and professionals supporting distributed knowledge of major hydromet dynamics and extremes. Mobile technologies, at the same time, are empowering citizens who are nowadays informed and involved in volunteering actions designed and implemented to make our communities more safe and sustainable. Citizen science, as a consequence, is gaining momentum empowering the general public, from the “pleasure of doing science” to complementing observations, increasing scientific literacy, and supporting collaborative behaviour to solve specific water-related challenges. This work illustrates a conceptual transdisciplinary assessment model that was designed with the goal of standardizing the use of citizen science for advancing hydrology. This work was promoted by the Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY) Working Group established by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), and that is composed by a diverse group of hydrological, computer and social science experts. A community paper (Nardi et al., in press) presented the conceptualization of this transdisciplinary framework by identifying the shared constituents, interfaces and interlinkages between hydrological sciences and other academic and non-academic disciplines. Particular emphasis was given to the integration of human sensing and behavioural mechanisms into citizen science programs addressing hydrological problems. The proposed CANDHY transdisciplinary framework is here further tested and applied to assess some selected citizen science programs to understand the knowledge gaps and opportunities arising from ongoing citizen science programs. This comparative assessment shows some interesting preliminary results demonstrating the capacity of the proposed framework in homogenizing and accumulating knowledge from the collaboration of diverse participatory programs addressing similar or complementary hydrological challenges.

 

Nardi F. et al., in press. Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY): conceptualizing a transdisciplinary framework for citizen science addressing hydrological challenges. Hydrological Sciences Journal, https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1849707

How to cite: Nardi, F., Cudennec, C., Abrate, T., Annis, A., Assumpção, T. H., Aubert, A. H., Berod, D., Braccini, A. M., Buytaert, W., Dasgupta, A., Hannah, D. M., Mazzoleni, M., Polo, M. J., Sæbø, Ø., Seibert, J., Tauro, F., Teutonico, R., Uhlenbrook, S., Wahrmann Vargas, C., and Grimaldi, S.: Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY): on the application of a transdisciplinary framework for assessing citizen science projects addressing hydrological challenges, IAHS-AISH Scientific Assembly 2022, Montpellier, France, 29 May–3 Jun 2022, IAHS2022-528, https://doi.org/10.5194/iahs2022-528, 2022.