Citizen science in environmental and ecological sciences

Fraisl, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7523-7967, Hager, G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2259-0278, Bedessem, B., Gold, M., Hsing, P.-Y., Danielsen, F., Hitchcock, C.B., Hulbert, J.M., et al. (2022). Citizen science in environmental and ecological sciences. Nature Reviews Methods Primers 2 (1) e64. 10.1038/s43586-022-00144-4.

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Abstract

Citizen science is an increasingly acknowledged approach applied in many scientific domains, and particularly within the environmental and ecological sciences, in which non-professional participants contribute to data collection to advance scientific research. We present contributory citizen science as a valuable method to scientists and practitioners within the environmental and ecological sciences, focusing on the full life cycle of citizen science practice, from design to implementation, evaluation and data management. We highlight key issues in citizen science and how to address them, such as participant engagement and retention, data quality assurance and bias correction, as well as ethical considerations regarding data sharing. We also provide a range of examples to illustrate the diversity of applications, from biodiversity research and land cover assessment to forest health monitoring and marine pollution. The aspects of reproducibility and data sharing are considered, placing citizen science within an encompassing open science perspective. Finally, we discuss its limitations and challenges and present an outlook for the application of citizen science in multiple science domains.

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