Citizen Science

Crowd-sourcing for visual marine image annotations

The online Citizen Science project Marine Creatures for the annotation of underwater photography seabed images has been created in the platform Zooniverse, the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. Volunteers are being called to visually identify and classify the types of organisms present on the hard bottom seabed habitat and to detect the most important groups of marine sessile fauna present. Photos from a selection of three artificial and natural habitats are provided: artificial reefs, marine ports and natural sea caves. The project includes selected taxonomic categories and major seafloor organism types, such as Macroalgae, Sponges, Hydrozoans, Sea anemones, Corals, Polychaetes, Bivalves, Barnacles, Bryozoans and Tunicates. Some of these organisms are quite common and well known, while others often go unnoticed for the non-experts and can be easily mistaken. An analytical guide, tips and video tutorial are available for guidance and training.

Dive into the sea and help us identify marine creatures living on rocky bottoms.

Creation of a network for marine data collection
Citizen Scientists have been provided with NAUTILOS sensors for measuring and recording different environmental parameters. More specifically, the passive broadband acoustic recording sensor  for noise monitoring created by Aquatec can be used by divers to survey underwater soundscapes and monitor the acoustic impacts of human activities across diverse aquatic environments.

Also, the dissolved oxygen and the chlorophyl sensors developed by NKE can be used by citizen scientists – divers as digital smart dataloggers, which include also integrated temperature and pressure sensors to measure depth profiles. The divers can select the required settings at manual mode and upload the collected data on the NAUTILOS Data Portal using the CS App.

The Algawarning kit is also another tool created for the collection of marine data by citizens, more specifically for the monitoring of algal blooms. Citizen scientists have the opportunity to transmit reports on the anomalous presence of microalgae in aquatic environments directly from the detection site. Data have been collected mainly in Crete (Greece) and the Ligurian Region (Italy), as well as in the Svalbard Islands (Norway), and are uploaded on the NAUTILOS Data Portal using the CS App.

NIR Scanner micro and macro-plastic campaigns

NIVA organizes citizen science plastic-related campaigns in collaboration with cruise expedition ships, schools and science centers in order to demonstrate how the smartphone NIR scanner and camera can be used to identify plastic polymers. The citizen scientists are collecting plastic litter during shore and fjord cleaning campaigns. They can also participate to the operation of Manta nets attached on a USV (Unmanned Surface Vehicle) and soft bottom trawler nets, to collect surface and bottom litter samples respectively. Lectures on marine plastic pollution have been prepared in collaboration with Plastic Pirates.

Citizen Science Plastics-Related Campaigns

HCMR is organizing citizen science beach cleaning campaigns involving schools, citizens and NGOs, during which plastic litter is collected from touristic coastal areas around Crete (Greece). The plastics are counted and categorized according to their type in dedicated forms, while the derived data are being uploaded using the CS App in the NAUTILOS Data Portal. Reports with data tables, graphs and maps can be created in the project’s portal through the application of selected filters on the data, indicating locations, time periods or habitat characteristics and respective plastic litter categories. The citizen science data produced during these campaigns are also regularly published as FAIR data through the EMODnet database.

Italian Marine Protected Areas Campaign

CNR organises citizen science and environmental education programmes in Italian marine protected areas (MPAs) surrounding the Pelagos Sanctuary, involving local NGOs, volunteers and high school students, in order to broaden their scientific knowledge on the problem of marine litter and make them aware of possible solutions. The MPAs, both coastal and insular areas, are located on the north-west coast of Italy, overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Ligurian Sea. Collection and cataloguing protocol used during these citizen science campaigns are carried out using the SeaCleaner protocol, based on the standard OSPAR protocol and MFSD guidelines.

The students have the opportunity to construct by themselves Marine Litter Trackers, which are low-cost smart-drifters with GSM real time tracking that can be used to study the dynamics of marine litter dispersion. These drifters are being released at the mouth of rivers Arno and Magra and tracked for several days in the Pelago Sanctuary area. Also volunteers are organizing campaigns for monitoring and removal of plastic waste from the seabed in Giannutri island.

CS Consent Forms

NAUTILOS project involves the collection of data by people (citizen scientists, stakeholders, professionals) in a number of different countries where the various activities are taking place. In order to ensure compliance with ethical standards for the involvement of humans in scientific activities, an informed consent document has been prepared and is required to be signed by the participants to guarantee their free and fully informed participation. A specialized consent form for citizens aged under 18 years old has been also prepared and is available for young school students. The forms are available in 4 languages: English, Greek, Italian and Portuguese.

By signing the NAUTILOS Project Informed Consent Form, the participants agree to take part in the NAUTILOS Project Citizen Science campaigns.
Before making a decision on whether you want to participate or not in a Citizen Science campaign, please read the documents carefully. Feel free to ask any questions to ensure that you fully understand the purpose and proceedings of this study, including risks and benefits.

If interested, register for gaining access to the Citizen Science App – a cool tool that is designed, implemented, and integrated into the NAUTILOS data infrastructure. It allows for the uploading and analyzing data gathered during various Citizen Science campaigns. Learn more here.

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icon This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101000825 (NAUTILOS). This output reflects only the author’s view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
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