Climate-resilient WASH among people experiencing homelessness in cities
February 2023-January 2024
Points of contact: Carmen Anthonj, Johannes Flacke
Access to clean drinking water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure (WASH) and related health benefits are widely enjoyed in high-income countries. WASH access is closely related to housing, which makes the provision, funding, operation and maintenance the responsibility of property owners. As a result, people without a permanent home, including people experiencing homelessness in urban areas, are often excluded from access. For them, homeless shelters, shelter services and public WASH infrastructure are often the only options.
What is already challenging under “normal” circumstances is complicated during extreme weather events: during heat waves, individuals require more water for hydration and cooling; flooding makes public toilets inaccessible; extreme cold disrupts the water supply. People affected by homelessness suffer particularly from the failure of the infrastructure and the resulting disease burden.
Despite the high societal relevance according to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 to “ensure water and sanitation for all”, and despite the human right to water and sanitation, the needs of people without homeless people are not yet fully met; WASH inequalities and the resulting burden of disease remain hidden and under-researched in official statistics. And despite the increasing frequency, intensity and unpredictability of extreme weather events, and evidence that extreme weather events threaten the daily life and health of homeless people, the impact on WASH infrastructure, and the consequences for homeless people and their health are not yet fully understood.
With this ITC-funded Blue Skies project in collaboration with the University of Bonn, we aim to fill both knowledge gaps and involve homeless people as key actors to identify appropriate solutions and interventions.
Specifically, the following activities will be undertaken:
- In-depth walking interviews with the target population of our research, people experiencing homelessness, to document through photos and jointly map water and health challenges
- Joint inspections and spot checks of water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure (in)accessible to people experiencing homelessness
- Focus group discussions with different relevant stakeholders such as representatives of homeless associations, authorities and social workers supporting and working with people experiencing homelessness, to identify suitable interventions
- Group mapping and discussing of issues rated to climate-resilient WASH by our target population on a maptable
For more information, please check the following website:
https://www.itc.nl/global-impact/geo-health/projects/water-security-wash-and-global-health/#water-health-and-decisions-research
Water rangers in Twente
July 2022-February 2023
Point of contact: Katja Egorova
This project was designed around a two-month data collection campaign in summer 2022 in Twente, in partnership with the national campaign “Catch the Monster” organized by Natuur en Milieu. Children from temporarily displaced families from Ukraine explored the geographic area and collected water quality data ranging from clarity to biodiversity. They also made observations related to the attractiveness of water bodies and surrounding areas and tried out the role of urban planners by developing recommendations for improving the urban blue spaces for recreation. The goal of this project was not only to collect data on urban blue spaces, but to also explore how environmental citizen science contributes to place discovery and place bonding among newly arrived youth.
We are currently analyzing data collected during the project, and the first insights were presented at the ECSA conference in Berlin. You can also read about the project here.
Mental models of energy transition: coming to a common ground
September 2021-May 2023
Points of contact: Katja Egorova, Karin van den Driesche, Johannes Flacke, Karin Pfeffer, Cheryl de Boer
In this project, we work together with the local energy cooperative to understand the potential of citizen science for energy transition. Having jointly identified the research question (how does the broad public think and talk about energy transition?), we are currently exploring mental models of energy transition, and developing methods for their elicitation and analysis. In the next step, we will explore the process of co-creating shared mental models, relying on design thinking methods. The output of this project will include a methodological toolbox for working with individual and shared mental models in the context of citizen science. This toolbox – grounded in natural language processing, cognitive linguistics, and design thinking – will be readily transferrable to other citizen science projects and contexts such as risk perception and communication.
Keeping track of changes towards healthy-living in a green urban Suriname
July 2021-December 2022
Points of contact: Wieteke Willemen, Nina Schwarz
The benefits of urban green spaces to human wellbeing -e.g. through cooling, recreation, social cohesion- are increasingly recognised. However, pertinent knowledge gaps on the role of urban green spaces in tropical cities exist, where lifestyle and ecology differ strongly compared to the well-studied European and North-American areas. For example, what are the contributions of tropical tree species -such as palms- to healthy urban living? How and when are green spaces used in tropical cities, where is it too hot to be active during the day? How to manage and maintain urban green spaces in regions with year-round growing seasons? This lack of knowledge is hampering informed urban decision-making, for example in the expanding tropical city of Paramaribo, Suriname and other urban centres in the region.
Tropenbos Suriname and the Faculty of Geoinformation Sciences and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente joined forces to investigate the role of urban green spaces in providing healthy-living benefits over time through citizen-based monitoring to inform and activate stakeholders in Suriname. This monitoring should result in an increased knowledge on the role of urban green spaces across vegetation types and neighbourhoods, and how this role changes during a day and season. Specifically, the following activities will be undertaken:
- Citizen-based monitoring and learning: Together with public offices, schools, youth and neighbourhood organizations we will set up a citizen-based monitoring network by making small weather sensors available and activate monitoring groups to use our green space monitoring app in Paramaribo and Wanica
- Streamlining data for action. We will develop protocols for semi-automatically cleaning and analysing the incoming data for a web portal to support decisions regarding access, distribution and management of green spaces.
- Sharing with the Caribbean region. We will contribute to the knowledge base about tropical urban green spaces with a scientific publication, and will provide reflections on designing and using a citizen-based urban green space monitoring network for inclusive decision-making in the Caribbean region.
For more information, please check the following websites: Groen Paramaribo and Steun Utwente.
Observatorio Metropolitano de Agua para Lima-Callao
December 2019-December 2022
Points of contact: Fenna Hoefsloot, Karin Pfeffer
The Metropolitan Water Observatory aims to contribute to a fairer distribution of water resources among urban residents, exploring the potential of collecting and disseminating data on access, quantity and quality of water for human consumption in the Metropolitan area of Lima and Callao, Peru. The observatory has been designed in collaboration with residents and experts and follows the principles of data justice and open science. By making inequalities visible through the platform and implementing an outreach campaign, the observatory ensures citizens have a space to share their experiences and knowledge regarding water access and provide data to influence action and policy for a fair, safe and secure water distribution system.
Using big data analytics to model the impact of climate change on spring onset
April 2021-November 2022
Point of contact: Raul Zurita-Milla
Phenology studies the timing of recurring plant and animal biological phases, their causes, and their interrelations. This timing varies from year to year and from place to place because it is strongly influenced by weather and climatic variability. Understanding phenological variability is critical to quantifying the impact of climate change on the biogeochemical cycles and managing natural resources, food production and public health. Because of this, several (inter-)national phenological networks have been established or revitalized over the past few years. These networks often rely on volunteers (citizen scientists) to collect data widely and over the long term. Despite the unprecedented resolution of these observations, and the large number of species and phenological phases being monitored, relatively few studies have systematically leveraged their information content, in most cases due to the lack of appropriate frameworks for handling big geospatial information. In parallel to the establishment of these networks, changes in data policies and in sensor technology have resulted in large amounts of open environmental data that can be used in phenological studies. Finally, advancements in machine learning and big data technologies have given birth to a third scientific paradigm that relies on data-driven approaches to accelerate scientific discovery. This project capitalizes on these developments and will deliver a big data solution that valorizes volunteered phenological observations.
European Citizen Science Association Working Group: European Citizen Science Platform
Ongoing
Point of contact: Frank Ostermann
The goal of this working group is to serve as “the central place of exchange for those interested in sustaining the EU-Citizen.Science platform (https://eu-citizen.science/ ), building it further and expanding it (e.g. adopting/making use of the platform source code, freely available, to set up a national/regional platform). By continuing to develop the European Citizen Science Platform we aim to contribute to the goal of establishing citizen science as a recognized, promoted and funded approach, one that fosters scientific literacy and the democratization of science.” (source: European Citizen Science Platform).
Smart Emission 2
2020-2022
Point of contact: Rob Lemmens
Smart Emission 2 (SE2) is a Small Innovation Project in the context of NWO's multidisciplinary research program Maps4Society. In the first Small Innovation Project, Smart Emission 1 (SE1), a citizen monitoring network was developed in the city of Nijmegen between 2015 and 2017 to monitor the environmental impact in the city participative using a citizen science approach. Air quality and noise were measured with small sensors, in a participatory process in which 'learning together' was central.
Results from the first project showed that the participatory process in that project (a citizen science process of measuring, analyzing and learning together) led to more mutual understanding between the citizen participants and the municipality and that a constructive dialogue was possible. The noise measurements proved useful to indicate where in the city excessive noise was observed during festivals and pop concerts. In the case of one so-called “use case”, a dialogue was conducted between neighbours about the burning of wood, whereby the neighbour had a filter installed on his combustion installation as a responsible stoker. Indicative measurements of the air quality showed that the air quality in crowded places in the city was not as bad as previously suspected. The air quality measurements also indicated that more research is needed to build a good air monitoring network in a city or region; with further development of sensors, ongoing calibration and maintenance efforts and with data analysis and visualization capabilities that are accessible to citizens and made more suitable for citizen science.
The SE1 project resulted in a prototype citizen monitoring network and smart emission data portal, and various follow-up questions to further improve "citizen monitoring networks". Follow-up questions have been formulated in collaboration with various actors, some of which will be examined in Smart Emission 2 in the period 2020 - 2022. The research questions come from:
- Citizen scientists from the first project SE1,
- Local authorities (municipality of Nijmegen,
- National knowledge institutes (RIVM, Land Registry),
- A market party (in this case the sensor developer from Smart Emission 1 (Intemo)
- Scientists: from Radboud University (Institute for Management Research), Wageningen University (Dep. Environmental Sciences), University of Twente (ITC) and HAS Den Bosch (Geo Media and Design)
In four small sub-projects, project SE2 tries to improve citizen measurement networks by developing and applying small innovations and by evaluating citizen monitoring networks and their applications in various practical situations:
- Air quality experiment in the city of Nijmegen
- Data visualisation tool
- Multi-actor visions on citizen sensing
- Linked-data concept map