On December 16th SCOOT had invited a passionate group of people to the Kristineberg research station. During an intense and hands on workshop we got demonstrations of new equipment and methods for ocean data acquisition. Not the tools that many professional oceanographers are familiar with, but the kind of technology that open up the field of ocean data collection to many, many more than before. This is citizen science, and there are strong reasons to believe that it will transform marine science. (This workshop was the second event under the banner of Ocean Data for Ocean Health. You may remember the ODOH conference SCOOT co-arranged last year?)
During the workshop we looked at sensors and at apps that are suitable for a wide range of users, including fishermen, boaters and basically anyone in contact with the ocean.
- Berring Data Collective demonstrated how local fisheries can put sensors on their gear, collecting data useful both for their own fishery and for oceanographic research.
- Deepoid AB demonstrated their miniature loggers for ocean currents, temperature and light. Super easy to deploy on a moored line and endurable thanks to low power consumption.
- Sailing 4 Science showed castaway CTD, an easy-to-use instrument that quickly delivers a vertical profile of temperature and salinity.
- SMHI presented the app EyeOnWater from MARIS and others. The app allows anyone can upload photos of the sea-surface to help capture the ocean color, an important parameter for determining particle content and presence of algae.
- Maranics AB presented an app for the project Algal Blooms Sweden, which invites anyone to share images and observations of blooms in the ocean.
New technologies open new opportunities for observing the ocean, that is wonderful… But that does not immediately translate into action, or impact for that matter! We discussed at length how and why broader groups of our society can be engaged in building knowledge about the ocean. Uta Wehn, from University of Gothenburg and IHE Delft, has long experience in this field and led us in the discussion. We were joined online by John Tumpane from Formas, who pointed out that citizen science has an important role in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for a Sustainable Development.
More about (marine) citizen science
- European Citizen Science Association (eu-citizen.science)
- Swedish node for citizen science: medborgarforskning.se
- Mission Starfish 2030, expert report from EU’s Mission Board Healthy Oceans, Seas, Coastal and Inland Waters, look especially in the table on p 28: check point for 2025, “20 percent of data collections comes from citizen’s science initiatives”.
- Ocean Data Factory Sweden is an open arena for companies, public agencies and academia. ODF Sweden strongly believes in citizen science.
- News (in Swedish) from Kristineberg Center where the workshop was hosted.
- Post about the workshop on GU web
- Post about innovation and the development of ocean loggers by Deepoid AB.
- Post about Berring Data Collective as an “ocean changemaker”.
- Post about the Ocean Data for Ocean Health conference 29 September 2020.
- Post about the Koster Seafloor Observatory.
- Post about the Baltic Seabird AI/UX Hackathon.
- Post about the Killer Shrimp Invasion Challenge, and the winner!
- Post about the citizen innovation project SunChallenger II, a solar powered autonomous vessel monitoring the ocean.
- Post about our open data workshop, this is where SCOOT’s interest in open (and eventually also citizen) science started, and where ODF Sweden was initiated.