The LandSense Citizen Observatory aims to aggregate innovative EO technologies, mobile devices, community-based environmental monitoring, data collection, interpretation and information delivery systems to empower communities to monitor and report on their environment. A number of key characteristics fundamental to the LandSense Citizen Observatory include:
- Bidirectional information flows between different communities (i.e. citizens, scientists, policymakers, industries, SMEs, NGOs, etc.);
- Involve new citizen functions in accumulating and using information;
- Support multi-scalar government from the EU level downwards;
- Complement EO (i.e. remotely sensed) data and state-organized data collection;
- Give communities access to easily-understandable information needed for decision-making.
A key component of the project is the LandSense Engagement Platform. Various communities will be able to actively participate within the LandSense engagement platform through a variety of interactive tools and functions to facilitate information transfer, assessment, valuation, uptake and exploitation of environmental data and results. The platform will offer collaborative mapping functionalities to allow citizens to view, analyse and share data collected from different campaigns and create their own maps, individually and collaboratively. In addition, citizens can participate in ongoing LandSense demonstration cases using their own devices (e.g. mobile phones and tablets), through interactive reporting and gaming applications, as well as launching their own campaigns.
Urban Landscape Dynamics
The Environmental Geography group of IVM is involved with the theme Urban Landscape Dynamics within the Landsense project. This theme focuses on engaging citizens in monitoring land change in urban and peri-urban areas. Reported changes and citizens’ perceptions of changes will be incorporated into local authorities’ databases for improved urban planning.
Our work focuses on the use of crowdsourcing methods to collect information about people’s perceptions of urban green space and how this information can feed back into planning policy and ensuring a city’s green spaces are attractive, functional and accessible for all residents, using Amsterdam as our test grounds.
An example of this is our first project in the Rembrandtpark, using an app to collect information from park user while in the park. For more information visit the local project website: https://mijnpark.environmentalgeography.nl
For more information about Landsense, please visit the project website: https://landsense.eu/
Or you can mail Bep Schrammeijer.