Citizen science data visualization platform

During nature watch campaigns, citizen scientists are invited to observe and record wildlife timely, which not only strengthens the connection between citizens and nature but also serves as a promising species distribution data source. Species record data collected by citizen scientists via online questionnaire automatically flows into the visualization platform database (after data cleaning and manually periodically check) and turns into intuitive and attractive visualized charts and maps (two types: spatial, spatial and temporal) via Power BI. The platform, with both web and mobile version, provides real-time feedback to citizen scientists’ nature watch efforts, boosting their sense of accomplishment and motivating their future participation in nature watch activities. Moreover, since the platform integrates multiple nature watch campaigns with links to web articles about specific analysis of each campaign, it offers a broad range of biodiversity knowledge and enables “virtual nature watch” for citizens to get to know wildlife in other regions.

 

A brief timeline of the platform:

  • Jan-Feb 2021: form team, analyze analysis, make blueprint
  • Mar-Jun 2021: develop database and platform
  • Jul-Aug 2021: trial test
  • Sept 2021: go live and promotion
    • A well-designed data-collection questionnaire and automatic data cleaning mechanism to ensure data quality and a manually periodically check (normally once a season) to ensure data reality.
    • Visualization methods selection and aesthetic design with the engagement of citizen scientists.
    • PowerBI technology.
    • Citizen scientist WeChat community operation and maintenance.
    • As a public outreach product, it would never be too much for polishing contents and aesthetic design to make the platform user-friendly and attractive.
    • Engaging users in the planning stage and collecting their thoughts is very helpful for identifying user needs.
    • Questionnaires are needed to be well-designed and citizen scientists are needed to be well-trained before recording data. Otherwise, it’s easy to cause data loss.
    Restor Platform

    Thanks to the Restor.eco platform, we analyze the restoration potential of our reserve, monitoring changes over time with satellite images and geospatial data, thus knowing the local biodiversity and its characteristics, current and potential soil carbon, as well as other variables such as patterns of land cover, soil acidity, or annual precipitation, using machine learning, artificial intelligence, and scientific units of measure.

    • Access to spatial information.
    • Updated scientific data and resources.
    • Increases the impact, scale, and sustainability of restoration efforts.
    • Restor is accelerating the global restoration movement by connecting everyone, everywhere to local restoration.
    • Restor connects people to scientific data, supply chains, funding, and each other to increase the impact, scale, and sustainability of restoration efforts.
    • Is not just about trees or forests, but also about grasslands, wetlands, coastal habitats and all the other places that support life on Earth.
    Mobile Apps

    The use of mobile Apps such as eBird, iNaturalist, Merlin Bird ID, provocated a positive impact for us on monitoring ecosystem and biodiversity.

    • Community engagement and environmental education.
    • Support of international organizations such as Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Environment for the Americas.

    Local knowledge and local communities are very important for monitoring process and ecosystem conservation/restoration.

    Publication of ouputs

    In order to commit Research-Practice Teams in the Heritage Place Lab on a voluntary basis, it was necessary to establish the production of tangible outputs that would be useful for individuals, institutions and heritage places. The Heritage Place Lab proposed to develop and publish the research agendas resulting from the process, the publication of a special issue on the Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development (Emerald) which is an important step for academics, and the production of Nature-Culture solutions to be published on PANORAMA. 

    - WHLP runs the PANORAMA Nature-Culture Community;

    - ICCROM, main implementing partner is itself a research institution and has in-house publishing;

    - Partnership established with the Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development (Emerald) for the development of the special issue.

    The process of publishing outputs adds to the process of the online incubator workshops, so it is important to calculate the timing for both processes, as well as counting with resources for editorial work and follow-up. This needs to be established before starting the implementation.

    Coordination Platform for Sustainable Pasture Management

    A Pasture Coordination Platform was organized in Armenia as a horizontal management network among relevant stakeholders on national and sub-national level. Each party is represented by a spokesperson, who coordinates the functions of the party within the Platform and ensures information flow. A secretariat ensures the operation of the Platform. The rationale for creation of the Platform was the need to promote effective cooperation, exchange of information, as well as coordination of activities among the projects implemented in Armenia, focusing on sustainable management of natural fodder areas.

     

    Since 2018 the Platform has evolved and now more than 10 organizations, institutions, projects and public administration bodies are involved in the Platform’s activities, aiming to ensure viability of programs and investments in the area of animal farming, increase economic opportunities of communities and support income growth of rural residents in Armenia. Key objectives of the Coordination Platform are:

     

    • Coordination, exchange of information exchange and experience, identification of potential cooperation areas
    • Implementation of joint projects, activities
    • Advocating and supporting development of relevant state policy and legislation promoting sustainable use and management of natural fodder areas

     

    • The platform has a clear aim: "to improve the situation/ livelihood of the rural population which depends on natural fodder areas while sustainably using and conserving these natural ecosystems”.  

    • The need for coordination, cooperation and exchange was felt by parties both from government as well as non-government organizations. 

    • A memorandum was officially signed to establish the platform. 

    • All members have clearly distinguished functions. 

    • Active participation of the community stakeholders in decision making and coordination of the local projects was crucial. Placing the local working groups in charge of the local implementation not only generated a high level of ownership of the project and ensured the engagement of the community.  

    • The coordination with other development organizations on the local scale was a key factor. The harmonization of these different local interventions resulted in a comprehensive, positive change for the communities. Each intervention was complimented by the others and would not have achieved the same results as an isolated activity. 

    • Based on the memorandum of understanding, the common interest and need of all stakeholders in the platform to cooperate increased their commitment and ensured the continuity of the process. 

    • Multi stakeholder advisory bodies face high risks from unforeseen changes in governmental institutions or even within their own parties. The meticulous documentation of agreements and activities has proven to be an important measure for dealing with this risk.  

    Rewilding for restoring key species and their ecological roles in a degraded ecosystem

    We developed the Iberá Rewilding Program, aimed at
    re-establishing sustainable populations of all locally extirpated
    fauna. These reintroductions are mainly aimed to advance ecological restoration instead of individual species endangered recovery. Also, focusing in the restoration of key species which effect in the ecosystem is stronger, we guarantee the restoration of their role and the recovery of a healthy and balanced ecosystem
     

    - Planning, feasibility assessments and permits

    -Source of animals

    - Quarantine phase and hand-rearing 

     -Pre-release phase

    -Release of individuals

    - Individuals monitoring

    - Reintroduced population monitoring and demographic evaluation

    - Demographic assessment

    - Communication and program evaluation
     

    We recognize two main organizational strengths that have
    helped us to achieve our rewilding results in Iberá: the availability of large areas of high-quality and well-protected habitat for
    released animals (some of which were owned and managed by us),
    and the existence of long-term funding that allowed us to work
    for more than 10 years. These advantages are not always available
    to reintroduction projects, which usually face difficulties in habitat
    and funding availability.
     

    Creating Awareness about Marine Conservation in Palk Bay (2007 - 2022)

    In 2007, a 600 km solo sea kayak was carried out along the coast of Tamil Nadu (southeast coast of India) for creating awareness about the conservation of local marine ecosystems including dugongs, seagrasses, coral reefs, and mangroves. In the following years, about 40000 people including school students, university students, fisherfolks, and government officials have attended our marine conservation awareness events in the last 15 years through folk music, school level awareness education programs, competitions, seminars, training, field trips, and distribution of awareness materials. This continuous awareness at the local and sub-national level has built rapport with the stakeholders for the rescue and release of dugongs, and mapping and restoration of seagrass beds.

    • Capacity building of staff and volunteers from the local community. 
    • We produced a large set of underwater photos and videos of seagrass habitats and dugongs from the local coast. 
    • We set up our marine education center called “Palk Bay Environmental Education Centre” in 2011.
    • We distributed more than 25000 awareness materials to the stakeholders in the last 15 years.  
    • We organized (seminars/training/camps/field trips) on nonprofit basis for school students, university students, fisherfolks as well as government officials. 

     

    •  Continuous efforts for a few years in nature conservation awareness can change the mindset and support from local stakeholders.

     

    • Producing our photos, and videos and sharing our field experience in dugong rescue, release, and seagrass restoration are important tools.

     

    • The capacity building of staff and volunteers from the local community helped to spread awareness for more than a decade continuously.

     

    • Setting up our marine education campus close to the target area (seagrass beach) is a major advantage, which gives direct exposure to the visitors.
    Early Warning System

    Through a fully functioning integrated health monitoring system for people, habitat and habituated apes and other wildlife, an early warning system was created. The aim is to detect prevalent diseases early and prevent its spreading within wildlife or human population through improved collaboration with public health and civil society actors. The Health monitoring system comprises:

    Health condition of habituated gorillas are monitored daily. The Primate Habituation Programme was started by WWF back in 1997 and is one of the main pillars of the conservation work in Dzanga-Sangha ever since. Habituation has started in Campo Ma'an since 4 years. 

    A variety of methods are used to investigate the spread of zoonotic pathogens in the natural habitat, such as collecting monthly faecal and urine samples from the gorillas and, less frequently, from mangabeys, collecting vectors such as carrion flies, and regularly taking swab and necropsy samples from carcasses. These are then analysed in the field laboratory.

    Conservation and ecotourism employees and their families receive annual health checkups and vaccinations, and are closely monitored in suspected cases.

    • an operational field laboratory for the collection and analysis of samples from wildlife, 
    • continous health monitoring of the habituated gorillas; 
    • regular health monitoring of conservation and ecotourism staff and their families.

     

    • The long-term cooperation with RKI/HIOH has contributed to the professionalisation of the field laboratories through equipment, training and knowledge exchange.
    • Preventive health surveillance and the consideration of human, wildlife and habitat health within a One Health concept proved to be very effective in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. Quick and targeted intervention was possible.

    • Peer-to-peer training and knowledge exchange between the two sites has substantially improved performance in Campo Ma'an.

    Effective management

    In cooperation with Tsinghua University, Huangshan has developed a monitoring system covering various evaluation indicators of the three designations, issued monitoring reports every year, analyzed the work of the whole mountain and guided the future work plan.

    We have improved our display and education system to make employees, communities and school students better understand the values and connections of UNESCO designations. We have launched various forms of educational activities, used our Wechat official account, geopark museum, interpretation boards, promotional materials and website to demonstrate the different values of Huangshan. 30 sessions of Huangshan Nature Lecture were held. 20 education articles about integrated management were published on Wechat account. Our English website and 40 interpretation boards were updated to include content about integrated management.

    1. Support from partner university

    2. Monitoring and education are the common goals of the three designations.

    Monitoring reports need to be distributed to every department and exchanged to better support each other.

    The use of the media is needed to publicize the work and achievements. This can not only show achievements but also attract more partners, bring more cooperation opportunities and expand influence.

    Evaluation, dissemination, and effective conservation management.

    Release management techniques, data collection, and the need for intervention are continuously being assessed to facilitate effective adaptive management on a day-to-day basis.

     

    Dissemination of methods and results is an important tool to communicate to donors, attract new funding or stakeholder support, and increase awareness at a national and international level.

     

    Monthly reports to project partners are published online at www.BirdsOnTheEdge.org in a reader-friendly format that engages with the public. As a result, the project has received funding, attracted post-graduate research, helped network with international practitioners and inspired other organizations.

     

    Work is currently underway to analyze existing data, identify data gaps, and carry out research that will aid the development of a long-term management plan.

     

    Durrell recently incorporated the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation into their strategic planning using Miradi software.

    • An existing organizational ethos to assess, plan, implement, evaluate, and disseminate projects.
    • A supportive network of people with a wide variety of skills.
    • Financial backing to set up, run, and develop online tools and resources.

    This building block is ongoing and hard to review at present.