Citizen Science and the India Biodiversity Portal Thomas Vattakaven, Strand Life Sciences,...
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Transcript of Citizen Science and the India Biodiversity Portal Thomas Vattakaven, Strand Life Sciences,...
Citizen Science and the India Biodiversity Portal
Thomas Vattakaven, Strand Life Sciences, Bangalore, India.
•http://indiabiodiversity.org/ •Aims to aggregate information on the biodiversity of India and make it openly accessible to all.•All data is put out under Creative Commons Licences.
Information modules
• Species pages – descriptive content on species (Crowd sourced from verified users)
• Observations – species sighting records with media- (Crowd sourced – Citizen science)
• Lists – species records from a locality (Crowd sourced – Citizen science)
• Maps – map layers containing ecological information.
• Documents – publications on a species. (Crowd sourced)
TreesIndia• Aim: To document every tree species in India with a photo-essay and
at least one occurrence record.• Initiated in January 2014• Collaborative effort – several experts with interest in Trees of India
were invited to join as founders of the group• Members of IBP were invited to join as participants• All existing tree observations and species pages were added to the
group.• A workshop was conducted in February to plan the a campaign to
map and document neighborhood trees across India.• 33 partcipants across the country attended. These included NGO
representatives, researchers, school teachers and students as well as Masters’ and PhD students
Neighborhood Trees Campaign
• Users asked to photograph, document and write a story• Campaign ran for 1 week from Earth Day 22nd April to
28th April.• Run exclusively online• Advertised on email groups, facebook, Google plus and
to all users of IBP• Press kit and publicity material prepared and provided
to the press – received wide coverage across India• Interested organizations were asked to join as partners
of the campaign and conduct tree-walks
Participation
Percentage of registered users who uploaded observations
Percentage of registered users who provided species Identification
Participation in Species Identification
Less than 20% of the total observations were unidentified during the campaignThe unidentified percentage is now less than 10%
31 29 29 20 19
15 15171718
Ficus religiosa Delonix regia Mangifera indica Artocarpus heterophyllus Peltophorum pterocarpum
Ficus benghalensis Azadirachta indica Spathodea campanulata Grevillea robusta Cassia fistula
Most identified tree species
About 680 species of trees were uploaded during the campaign, of which 68% were native to India and 32% are introduced species.
Outcome..
• Participation continues with many of the users becoming regular users. Currently around 750 members.
• There are now 450 tree species pages with at least 1 image and 1300 species pages with at least 1 record.
• Continued effort to energize citizens to participate and upload observations/ provide IDs and to convert enthusiasts into species page contributors.
• Neighborhood Trees Campaign 2015
Challenges
• Participation• Incentives• Ease of use / user experience• Guiding users on effective documentation and
to overcome biases• Identification guides• Value addition