A Review of Studies on Participatory Early Warning Systems (P-EWS): Pathways to Support Citizen Science Initiatives

Abstract

Context: Global environmental change and disasters pose several challenges to governments, society and science. These challenges occurred in social contexts were information and communication technologies can be used to share data and information, engaging citizen scientists in multidirectional and decentralized knowledge creation initiatives. Often referenced as participatory (or people-centered) early warning systems, this has been of a great potential to improve decisions taken by both emergency institutions and exposed and/or affected communities. Several methodologies have been proposed, mainly in natural science, redefining traditional ways of transferring knowledge about scientific process to the public.

Global Mapping of Citizen Science Projects for Disaster Risk Reduction

“…This would more closely align projects with DRR and help to address some live challenges (e.g., Desai and Lavell, 2015) in using DRM s as a tool to afford positive development trajectories. This finding is concurrent with evidence from other citizen science reviews in related fields (e.g., Hecker et al, 2018;Marchezini et al, 2018). For the remainder of this paper, we reflect on three key issues raised from our global mapping exercise.…”

“What is a Sociologist Doing Here?” An Unconventional People-Centered Approach to Improve Warning Implementation in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

“…The second reason is the disproportionate number of certain hazards addressed in participatory initiatives that reveal the inequalities of the multi-hazard approach. Floods represented the most frequent hazard in these selected studies (29%), followed by tsunamis (13%) and droughts (9%) (Marchezini et al 2018). The third reason is the perspective of the participation adopted.…”

“…Participation in warning systems is a challenge for a number of reasons. Despite the growing number of scientific articles about warning systems published in English from 2005 to June 2018 (Marchezini et al 2018), the scientific contribution to identifying ''how to build people-centered systems'' is highly concentrated in a ''research-prone'' area-Asian countries (56%)-where scientists affiliated with organizations from developed regions-mainly the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia-went to develop their studies. The second reason is the disproportionate number of certain hazards addressed in participatory initiatives that reveal the inequalities of the multi-hazard approach.…”

“…The third reason is the perspective of the participation adopted. Marchezini et al (2018) stated that of the 93 studies selected, almost 85% reported participatory experiences in a consultative way, that is, through surveys and interviews. The findings indicated that only 15% of the selected studies dealt with participatory methodologies that involved data collection and analysis.…”

Redução de riscos de desastres na produção sobre educação ambiental: um panorama das pesquisas no Brasil

“…Considerando as pesquisas que identificaram a natureza dos riscos/desastres, pudemos constatar que os eventos hidrológicos foram os mais estudados, o que coincide com os resultados de outra pesquisa de natureza estado da arte que analisou a ciência cidadã e gestão de desastres em 408 artigos científicos, publicados nos nove principais jornais de riscos e desastres, entre 2005 e junho de 2018 (MARCHEZINI et al,2018b), na qual as inundações predominaram como principal ameaça.…”