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Short Abstract

Practical technical arrangements for crowdsourcing environmental observations jointly from groups of different level of professionalism, on site and from satellite Earth observation products, utilizing Open311 based API platform Citobs by Syke. Ice, snow and algae blooms as examples.

Abstract

Information on e. g. ice and snow are relevant to very many different user groups, and it would be very difficult to set up a single mobile application service for all of them. Instead, for crowdsourcing of observations should be made available as a feature in varied services. Crowdsourcing is the technical term for gathering input and requesting for activities e. g. to observe the surrounding environment by those who are willing to participate: Common citizen observers, observations from people travelling across certain areas or at work on location, even those engaged in scientific field work on a site. Crowdsourcing can be participated by voluntary inexperienced laymen and professionals alike, and thus citizen observations can be of professional quality. However, the observations submitted via vesi.fi (waterinfo.fi) or jarviwiki.fi are typically very simple and basic, as they are aimed for common people. Syke has developed the Open311 based Citobs platform and several associated methods to release and manage more varied questionnaires and practices to assign roles to different types of participants, in voluntary, semi-professional organizer and professional roles. This ongoing development for gathering data from dedicated and more advanced observers up to professional level is presented with examples on snow, ice and algae bloom observations as well as on aquatic environment restauration planning activities. One of the primary objectives is to integrate pseudonymized observations on site to methods of observation by satellite, in order to provide match-up data and to complement cloudy or other periods of missing satellite data.