Global Mapping of Citizen Science Projects for Disaster Risk Reduction

Abstract

Citizen science for disaster risk reduction (DRR) holds huge promise and has demonstrated success in advancing scientific knowledge, providing early warning of hazards, and contributed to the assessment and management of impacts. While many existing studies focus on the performance of specific citizen science examples, this paper goes beyond this approach to present a systematic global mapping of citizen science used for DRR in order to draw out broader insights across diverse methods, initiatives, hazards and country contexts. The systematic mapping analyzed a total of 106 cases of citizen science applied to DRR across all continents. Unlike many existing reviews of citizen science initiatives, relevance to the disaster risk context led us to 'open up' our mapping to a broader definition of what might constitute citizen science, including participatory research and narrative-based approaches. By taking a wider view of citizen science and opening up to other disciplinary practices as valid ways of knowing risks and hazards, we also capture these alternative examples and discuss their relevance for aiding effective decision-making around risk reduction. Based on this analysis we draw out lessons for future research and practice of citizen science for DRR including the need to: build interconnections between disparate citizen science methods and practitioners; address multi-dimensionality within and across hazard cycles; and develop principles and frameworks for evaluating citizen science initiatives that not only ensure scientific competence but also attend to questions of equity, responsibility and the empowerment of those most vulnerable to disaster risk.

Mapping citizen science contributions to the UN sustainable development goals

“…Completeness, filling all the identified data gaps for SDG monitoring (UN Environment 2019) and Timeliness providing early warning of hazards, and reducing the disaster risk (Hicks et al 2019), with the consequent improvement of several SDGs (Kelman 2017).…”

Analyzing the Role of Resource Factors in Citizens’ Intention to Pay for and Participate in Disaster Management

“…The extensive participation of citizens during the occurrence of disasters not only provides support to relieve the gap of disaster damage and solve vulnerability but also has a positive influence on rebuilding after disasters as well as developing the local community [1][2][3][4][5]. Hicks et al demonstrated that citizens' participation led to global mapping and resulted in enhancing the disaster reduction [6]. They showed how a real-time natural disaster In fact, when disaster strikes, because citizens are present at the scene of a disaster, they can be the "true" first responders, who can actively address community needs by participating in activities such as the restoration of public services and infrastructure [22][23][24][25][26][27].…”

Review article: Natural hazard risk assessments at the global scale

“…From the start, the DIVA model has explicitly represented the costs and benefits of future DRR measures, since it was developed to assist climate adaptation studies. DIVA has been used in several studies at a global scale, including those of Hinkel and Klein (2009) and Hinkel et al (2010Hinkel et al ( , 2014, to assess risks under scenarios of sea level rise, subsidence, and population growth, with several assumptions on future DRR measures. It has also been used by Hallegatte et al (2013) to assess coastal flood risk and the costs and benefits of structural DRR measures in major coastal cities by 2050.…”