Interviews

Ellen-Wien Augustijn is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geo-information Processing specializing in spatial Agent-based models in which both the geo-environment and human behavior are important factors. Currently, her research focuses on behavior change and the implementation of artificial intelligence in ABMs for health applications. 

Where do you see the major contribution of citizens to your research?

One of my research interests lies in studying risk perception (how do people assess risks, and when and how do they change their behavior?), with the final goal of bringing intelligent behavior into the spatial modeling of phenomena such as the spread of diseases. As for the involvement of citizens, we use MOOC (massive open online courses) as a space for engaging our participants into the large-scale collection of data on risk perception — for example, in our last study, we used photographs of rivers to study how aspects such as the water color and floating garbage influence the perception of the water quality. These large-scale datasets not only allow us to study variation in perceptions among different groups but can also serve as training datasets for machine learning.

How do citizens benefit from participating in your research, on the individual or on the community levels? 

Collecting large-scale datasets allows us to better model and understand risk-related phenomena, and the contribution of visual signals in the environment in the risk perception. This results in better and more nuanced risk maps, and more importantly, leads to smarter decision-making in the future. 

Are you satisfied with the degree/level of collaboration with citizens? Do you see ways of improving and intensifying interaction with the citizens?

I see multiple opportunities for further development of the citizen science approach. First, data collected in some of the citizen science projects has important limitations. Thus, one project here at GIP models tick bite risk based on tick bites reported by citizens online. Essentially, this data only allows us to generate and model “positives” (where the bites occurred), and not negatives, and we need to think of ways to address this gap.  Second, we need to find better ways for engaging with citizens, who often lack the awareness of possibilities offered by citizen science. We need to develop better communication channels and tools for “finding matches” between scientists and citizens.  For my research on the impact of the environment on risk perception, to collaborate with citizens, we need to get a better understanding of their spatial thinking, or perception of the environment. This is particularly true for projects in the Global South, where cultural practices and meanings result in interaction with space that is different from that in the Global North.

I also think it is important to share ideas on citizen science across the faculties, which is now also facilitated through the launch of the Citizen Science Hub at the UT. I found it interesting that health-related citizen science projects at the DesignLab turn to citizens for framing research questions, while here at GIP we mostly turn to citizens for data collection. I think there is a good potential for the exchange of ideas, experience and expertise.

Collecting large-scale datasets allows us to better model and understand risk-related phenomena, which results in better and more nuanced risk maps, and more importantly, leads to smarter decision-making in the future.

Norman Kerle is Full Professor of Remote Sensing for Disaster Risk Management in the ITC’s Earth Systems Analysis department. His research relates to hazards, risk and disaster damage assessment with multi-type geodata.

Where do you see the major contribution of citizens to your research?

My entry point to citizens science is collaborative mapping for post-disaster response. While we have seen significant advances in artificial intelligence for image analysis, interpretation of remote sensing data related to damage —for example, caused by an earthquake — is characterized by a high level of ambiguity, where even the shape of shadows comes into play. Such tasks are still largely done by hand, and when a fast disaster response is needed, it is just impossible to do without the eyes of 1000 people (and even if those eyes are rather subjective, they are still better than AI). Citizens thus fill the important gap in the sensing/perception technologies, and citizen science is currently the only way out in this type of tasks.

How do citizens benefit from participating in your research, both on the individual and the community levels?

There are essentially two types of volunteers: those based in the affected areas, and whose value in particular relates to their local knowledge, and volunteers contributing remotely from anywhere else in the world. The mapping of damaged areas has an immediate positive effect on the affected community, since it allows for fast and effective rescue response. The outside community that participates in the mapping process, on the other hand, benefits through the satisfaction of their intrinsic motivations such as altruism and empathy.

Does participation in your projects advance the general public’s knowledge of geospatial technology?

Our major goal behind training citizens is to make sure that they produce high quality data, and not to educate them on geospatial technology in general. To provide broader educational benefits for the society, we should first and foremost focus on addressing relevant environmental and societal issues in our research. In this case, when reaching out to citizens and asking them to participate, we will be able to inform them about the big issues that our societies are facing, and what scientists are doing to address these issues, which is important in our post-trust era.

Are you satisfied with the degree and level of collaboration with citizens? Do you see ways of improving and intensifying interaction with the citizens?

I see multiple areas for improvement, and several challenges still await being addressed. First, we still do not understand how to train citizens in information and communication technology systems, which is vital to have them clearly understand the specific mapping task, and thus a prerequisite for accurate mapping contributions. We have conducted several studies that showed how very detailed task description result in cognitive overload, or how working in teams is more productive and accurate for certain tasks. But more studies on human-computer interaction in the context of citizen science are needed, and we will address some of the existing gaps by developing an ICT system that allows more supervised mapping with corrective feedback as part of a recently awarded H2020 project called RiskPACC. Second, retaining citizens’ interest in long-term projects is still often a challenge. While short-term projects such as disaster response trigger compassion and high motivation to participate, long-term continuous projects require alternative means of retaining interest of citizens — a challenge that is particularly known to national mapping agencies.

While short-term projects such as disaster response trigger compassion and high motivation to participate, long-term continuous projects require alternative means of retaining interest of citizens — a challenge that is particularly known to national mapping agencies.

Nina Schwarz is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management. She is interested in interdisciplinary projects related to urban development, specifically urban land use change and urban ecosystem services.

Where do you see the major contribution of citizens to your research?

For example, in our project on urban ecosystem services in Suriname which Wieteke Willemen and myself run together with our partner Tropenbos Suriname. In the project, citizens monitor an “adopted” green space. They take measurements of air temperature and humidity, make observations of how people make use of the green spaces, and track other aspects such as the presence of litter. We thus gain unique data on the use of urban ecosystem services in tropical cities. 

How do citizens benefit from participating in your research, both on an individual and a community levels? 

The project engages the broad public and raises its awareness of the importance of urban green space for well-being, thus fostering conditions for the change of related policies to the larger benefit of the whole society.

Are you satisfied with the level of collaboration with citizens? Do you see ways of improving and intensifying interaction with the citizens?

The large plus of our project is the cooperation with local NGOs and other actors that facilitate our engagement with the broader public. They organize activities like popular science-webinars, photo-contests and tree-planting to engage with citizen and make people aware of the relevance of our work. Having such a liaison brings the project to a different level.

Are you using any particular collaborative geospatial tools? 

Choosing the most appropriate technology that is user-friendly and inclusive is key for citizen science projects. In our case, the geospatial and the participatory components are not very pronounced (since each participant is monitoring one green space), but we put specific emphasis on finding a monitoring application that would enable volunteers with diverse skills and experience to get involved.

What is your general attitude towards citizen science?

I think citizen science is increasingly growing into its own community with a lot of exciting new tools and ideas, but I also see the need for clear expectation management. For example, when citizens collect data about their local environment, they might develop expectations for a better maintenance of these environments. And if things they report are not fixed, for example litter, this can lead to frustration. Foreseeing and preventing such situations should be part of the design of citizen science projects.

How could the diversity of projects in your work field that engage with citizens be best identified? Which aspects help to differentiate between the type of projects?

I think it is important to differentiate between passive crowdsourcing, when citizens are often not aware of their data being used later on, and citizens’ active and conscious engagement into the scientific process. Another useful line for delineation is the geographic aspect — place-based citizen science activities have an explicit link to space.

Louise (Wieteke) Willemen is a Full Professor at the Department of Natural Resources working on ecosystem services  — nature's benefits to people — and rural development issues. Her research primarily focusses on making quantitative spatial information on ecosystem services available to support multi-objective decision making.

Where do you see the major contribution of citizens to your research?

There are two projects I will use as an example of involving citizens in my research. In Suriname, we work with a variety of local actors (ranging from NGOs to small businesses and general public) to monitor and promote the use of green urban space. In Ethiopia, we work with the local communities and Dutch companies to develop tools for preventing the erosion of the slopes of a dam. In both projects, we benefit from citizens’ local knowledge that help them identify problems and suggest solutions. For example, in Ethiopia, the local communities indicated areas that needed protection, and suggested fruit-bearing plants that could prevent the erosion but also generate income, and actively participated in their planting.  Our role as scientists is thus to facilitate the process, which brings our research salience, legitimacy and credibility, making it closely connected to relevant problem solving.

How do citizens benefit from participating in your research, both on an individual and a community levels? 

Participation in citizens science brings citizens an opportunity to have a say and ownership in change processes and in the agenda setting. Citizen science generates more “buzz”, resulting in more influence, and higher chances for institutional change.

Are you satisfied with the degree/level of collaboration with citizens? Do you see ways of improving and intensifying interaction with the citizens?

In general, yes, although I am concerned about certain outcomes. Despite the increasing involvement of citizens in the scientific processes, researchers still remain outsiders, whose ideas and priorities do not necessarily match the world of citizens. “Over-workshoped participants” reflect one such potential mismatch — researchers are often putting a lot of efforts to involve everyone to sit together at one table, making sure that every voice is heard and included. And while this approach is fully justifiable in the scientific context, it overlooks the fact that for citizens such workshops are still a side activity, and they can get tired of investing personal time without seeing immediate outcomes. Another issue that raises my concern is the potential of citizen science to widen existing societal gaps. For example, the urban population has more chances for participating and benefitting from citizen science, while the rural population may be completely unaware of the mere existence of these opportunities.

Are you using any particular collaborative geospatial tools and/or analysis methods? 

The choice of collaborative tools depends largely on the objective and community in question. For example, some communities I have worked with need time to get accustomed to reading maps, since they have never seen their village “from above”. We thus have to remember that citizens have different levels of education, experience with technology, or access technological infrastructure, and we should design our projects bearing this in mind.

What is your general attitude towards citizen science? 

I am sometime puzzled about the definition of “citizens” in “citizen science”, typically referred to as “non-scientific individuals or groups” in the literature. For example, are decision-makers citizens? Almost every project at ITC deals with institutional strengthening, including governments and decision-makers — do those projects fit the definition of citizen science? These questions are worth addressing if we want to engage with citizen science in a systematic way. More generally, I believe it is a good time for citizen science. Due to technological advancements (e.g. affordable sensors), the accessibility of new technologies to the general public (e.g. the Internet, smartphones, apps, platforms) we can better than ever collect, access and share data, and facilitate actor participation.

Citizen science generates more “buzz”, resulting in more influence, and higher chances for institutional change.

 Interviews were conducted by