Based on carefully devised methods for stakeholder analysis, co-design and engagement, Ground Truth 2.0 successfully completed the co-design of the six citizen observatories in its four European and two African Demo Cases, enabling local stakeholders to design their citizen observatory (CO) focused on their local needs
The technical solutions for the observatories are based on the functional design resulting from the co-design process and on the technical design developed for each case. In addition, Ground Truth 2.0 worked on data quality assurance methods and how to facilitate standard access for the CO data in order to make this information interoperable with other data sources. The initial version of each platform provides those functionalities that had been prioritised by the end users. The observatories were launched to the general public at targeted and carefully prepared launch events and data collection campaigns undertaken.
These activities were paralleled by research into the incentives and barriers for stakeholder participation in the observatories, the results of which fed into and guided the tailored engagement efforts in each Demo Case. A comprehensive impact assessment procedure was developed and implemented to trace social, institutional, economic and environmental changes triggered by the six observatories.
Ground Truth 2.0 aligned its efforts for building a Land User Mapper with prototypes of project-external parties in order to (eventually) generate a robust Global Land Use Mapper, especially for areas where either OSM data is scarce or remote sensing acquisition is hampered by frequent cloud cover. The Ground Truth 2.0 homepage serves as a prominent place for the unique GT2.0 approach, the Demo Cases and the posts about the Demo Case activities.
Overall, Ground Truth 2.0 had aimed to produce major impacts in two dimensions, namely (1) the demonstration of societal and economic benefits of citizen observatories and (2) their global uptake. In all its demonstration cases, the short term impacts of the observatories include the availability of data of high density, improved quality and relevance (facilitated by all the developments in the project around citizen observatories data), which are expected to translate - in the long term - into better decisions and improved land and natural resource management.
The Ground Truth 2.0 approach has been used beyond the project already in various proposals and projects by the Ground Truth partners in Europe (e.g. H2020 MICS) and the Middle East (e.g. KidronNar, funded by the Dutch Government) and is being shared via WeObserve Communities of Practice, during WeObserve Roadshow events as well as outreach activities. The exploitation of three Ground Truth 2.0 products (the GT2.0 co-design methodology for establishing a sustainable citizen observatory, the Land Use Mapper and the data quality module for checking data quality in citizen observatories) was supported via market analysis, business modelling and an exploitation roadmap as well as a video about the impact of citizen observatories.
