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Abstract:
Involving citizens into science has long tradition; examples are bird watching or weather observation. Digital technologies foster citizen science by providing easy to use apps via the Internet serving specific scientific tasks. At GFZ we develop and test approaches to receive data provided by citizens for various scientific applications: Examples are the quantification of light pollution during the night, and the assessment of damages to buildings caused by flood. Data provided by citizens should complement scientific data collected by sensors and thus overcome shortcomings sensors have. In the case of quantifying light pollution an app allows participants to use their visual system as a sensor to measure the brightness of the sky. The app directs participants to find a particular star in the sky, and then report whether it is visible or not. To assess flood damage we develop a system that filters relevant images from the huge amount of information available in social media and to extract suitable information such as inundation depth and area or water pollution. It also supports scientists to judge reliability and usefulness of the information derived from social media. In several studies we already could show the scientific value of data provided by citizens.
