The issue of sustainability is at the top of the political and societal agenda, being considered of extreme importance and urgency. Human individual action impacts the environment both locally (e.g., local air/water quality, noise disturbance) and globally (e.g., climate change, resource use). Urban environments represent a crucial example, with an increasing realization that the most effective way of producing a change is involving the citizens themselves in monitoring campaigns (a citizen science bottom-up approach). This is possible by developing novel technologies and IT infrastructures enabling large citizen participation. Here, in the wider framework of one of the first such projects, we show results from an international competition where citizens were involved in mobile air pollution monitoring using low cost sensing devices, combined with a web-based game to monitor perceived levels of pollution. Measures of shift in perceptions over the course of the campaign are provided, together with insights into participatory patterns emerging from this study. Interesting effects related to inertia and to direct involvement in measurement activities rather than indirect information exposure are also highlighted, indicating that direct involvement can enhance learning and environmental awareness. In the future, this could result in better adoption of policies towards decreasing pollution.
Complex Networks and Systems Lagrange Laboratory, Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, Turin, Italy;Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;Department for Artificial Intelligence and Applied Computer Science, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany;L3S Research Center, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany;Institute for Complex Systems (ISC), CNR, Rome, Italy;KERMIT, Dept. of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bioinformatics, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium;VITO—Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Mol, Belgium;Extreme Citizen Science Research Group, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom;Physics Department, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;Department for Artificial Intelligence and Applied Computer Science, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany;L3S Research Center, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany;Complex Networks and Systems Lagrange Laboratory, Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, Turin, Italy;Complex Networks and Systems Lagrange Laboratory, Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, Turin, Italy;Physics Department, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy;SONY-CSL Computer Science Lab, Paris, France;CSP—Innovation in ICT, Torino, Italy;L3S Research Center, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany;Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany;VITO—Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Mol, Belgium;CSP—Innovation in ICT, Torino, Italy;Complex Networks and Systems Lagrange Laboratory, Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, Turin, Italy;Institute for Complex Systems (ISC), CNR, Rome, Italy;Physics Department, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy;L3S Research Center, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany;Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany;VITO—Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Mol, Belgium;Complex Networks and Systems Lagrange Laboratory, Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, Turin, Italy;VITO—Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Mol, Belgium;KERMIT, Dept. of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bioinformatics, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Recommended Citation:
Alina Sîrbu,Martin Becker,Saverio Caminiti,et al. Participatory Patterns in an International Air Quality Monitoring Initiative[J]. PLOS ONE,2015-01-01,10(8)