Ground Truth 2.0

Description

The project delivered the demonstration and validation of six scaled up citizen observatories in real operational conditions, both in the EU and in Africa. This was done using the innovative approach of combining the social dimensions of citizen observatories with enabling technologies, so that the implementation of the respective citizen observatories in six Demo Cases was tailored to their envisaged societal and economic benefits. The demonstration cases (4 EU and 2 African) covered the full 'spectrum’ of citizen-sensed data usage and citizen engagement, and therefore allowed testing and validating of the concept and technologies, and evaluation of their impacts under a range of conditions. The observatories focused on environmental indicators in urban and rural areas (e.g. water quality and quantity, air quality, phenology, biodiversity, heat, human-wild life incidents) related to spatial planning issues as well as land and natural resources management. The combination of demonstration cases as well as the technologies, skills and networks of citizen associations involved via the GT2.0 consortium (a good mix of Industry, SME, NGO, Government, Research and Academia) presented a unique opportunity for positioning the European industry for the roll out and uptake of related technologies and services in the EU, in Africa as well as globally. Ground Truth 2.0 coordinated and interacted with other relevant initiatives, such as GEOSS and INSPIRE as well as the sister projects funded under the same call (namely GROW, SCENT and LANDSENSE) to create mutual synergies.

Aim

Ground Truth 2.0 aimed to demonstrate that sustainable Citizen Observatories are possible, strengthening the full feedback-loop in the information chain from citizen-based data collection to knowledge sharing for joint decision-making, cooperative planning and environmental stewardship.

How to participate

www.gt20.eu/citizen-observatories

Equipment