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Short Abstract

ECHO is a citizen science project engaging participants in soil science. Results from 9 initiatives, focusing on engagement, activities and feedback will be presented. The project aims to enhance soil knowledge, empower citizens with a toolkit for sampling and enable decision-making on soil issues.

Abstract

ECHO is a citizen science (CS) project engaging a broad network of citizen groups across 8 EU Member States and Scotland, expanding to 19 more countries by 2027. It aims to enhance soil knowledge and empowers participants with a toolkit for soil sampling and assessing soil health, allowing them to contribute to data collection and monitoring through the ECHO App and ECHOREPO platform, the project's long-term open-access data repository.

A review of similar projects and an assessment framework were conducted to leverage existing knowledge. Based on these findings, the ECHO CS method was refined and co-created with ECHO Ambassadors and citizen scientists, featuring the sampling protocols and co-defining the activities. The first 9 CS initiatives were launched, considering various regions, land-uses and soil types. ECHO Ambassadors, alongside the team, facilitate local activities and distribute the toolkits.

Results from the 9 CS initiatives cover citizen engagement strategies, ambassador and citizen scientists activities, participation rates, sociodemographics, as well as feedback on the sampling methodology and details of the ECHO app and the ECHOREPO, ensuring their possible replicability.

ECHO aims to assess a total of 16,500 sites, contributing valuable citizen generated data to the ECHOREPO and integrating them with the European Soil Observatory. The project has also evaluated its usefulness for different end-users, also identifying and engaging them to take an active and informed role in decision-making on soil issues.

Project ECHO is funded by the European Union, GA No. 101112869–ECHO, and co-funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), GA No. 10068004.