Final Report Summary - CITIZENSENSE (Citizen Sensing and Environmental Practice: Assessing Participatory Engagements with Environments through Sensor Technologies)
The Citizen Sense project has investigated the relationship between technologies and practices of environmental sensing and citizen engagement. Sensors, which are an increasing part of digital communication infrastructures, are commonly deployed for environmental monitoring within scientific study and industrial applications. Practices of monitoring and sensing environments have migrated to a number of everyday participatory applications, where users of smart phones and networked devices are able to engage with similar modes of environmental observation and data collection. Such “citizen sensing” projects intend to democratize the collection and use of environmental sensor data in order to facilitate expanded citizen engagement in environmental issues. This project has asked how effective these practices of citizen sensing might be in not just providing crowd-sourced data sets, but also in giving rise to new modes of environmental citizenship and practice.
In order to undertake this research, the project worked through a set of inventive fieldwork and practice-based methods that first documented existing citizen sensing projects and applications; and that then took the form of seminar-walking events and sensor workshops where sensing practices and technologies were tested and installed to study distinct project-area related environmental problems. The fieldwork and practice-based methods developed through participatory processes, and participants used collaboratively developed sensing toolkits to monitor environments to document their environmental concerns.
The Citizen Sense project set out to contextualize, question and expand upon the understandings and possibilities of democratized environmental action through citizen-sensing practices through three project areas. The first project area, “Pollution Sensing,” studied the increasing use of sensors to detect environmental pollution, especially in relation to air quality and fracking infrastructure. The second project area, “Urban Sensing,” focused on sensor technologies in urban settings, and investigated and how citizens use monitoring technologies to document concerns about changing urban environments, especially in relation to air pollution. The third project area, “Wild Sensing,” focused on how vegetation and other organisms sense environments and environmental pollution, and how plants and technologies can capture and inform urban design interventions, especially to mitigate air pollution.
The Citizen Sense project has tested technologies and practices used to monitor air pollution in relation to shale gas extraction in northeastern Pennsylvania, USA that has contributed to the expansion of the governmental air quality monitoring network; in congested urban environments in South East London that has supported community campaigns to improve the local environment; and with air quality gardens and sensors installed and tested in the City of London that informed an air quality garden toolkit for wide distribution. Through an ERC Proof of Concept grant (2019-2020), Citizen Sense will build on these findings to develop an AirKit project for participants to monitor their air quality levels.
More information on project activities, including ongoing research, is available at www.citizensense.net.
In order to undertake this research, the project worked through a set of inventive fieldwork and practice-based methods that first documented existing citizen sensing projects and applications; and that then took the form of seminar-walking events and sensor workshops where sensing practices and technologies were tested and installed to study distinct project-area related environmental problems. The fieldwork and practice-based methods developed through participatory processes, and participants used collaboratively developed sensing toolkits to monitor environments to document their environmental concerns.
The Citizen Sense project set out to contextualize, question and expand upon the understandings and possibilities of democratized environmental action through citizen-sensing practices through three project areas. The first project area, “Pollution Sensing,” studied the increasing use of sensors to detect environmental pollution, especially in relation to air quality and fracking infrastructure. The second project area, “Urban Sensing,” focused on sensor technologies in urban settings, and investigated and how citizens use monitoring technologies to document concerns about changing urban environments, especially in relation to air pollution. The third project area, “Wild Sensing,” focused on how vegetation and other organisms sense environments and environmental pollution, and how plants and technologies can capture and inform urban design interventions, especially to mitigate air pollution.
The Citizen Sense project has tested technologies and practices used to monitor air pollution in relation to shale gas extraction in northeastern Pennsylvania, USA that has contributed to the expansion of the governmental air quality monitoring network; in congested urban environments in South East London that has supported community campaigns to improve the local environment; and with air quality gardens and sensors installed and tested in the City of London that informed an air quality garden toolkit for wide distribution. Through an ERC Proof of Concept grant (2019-2020), Citizen Sense will build on these findings to develop an AirKit project for participants to monitor their air quality levels.
More information on project activities, including ongoing research, is available at www.citizensense.net.