LandSense delivered concrete, measurable and quality assured results that complement existing EO monitoring systems and can be seen as extending the in-situ component of the GEOSS and Copernicus initiatives. LandSense conducted seven demonstration pilots across seven countries across 3 domains. The pilots engaged some 1500 volunteers, who collected more than 10,000 in-situ observations and contributed to 725,000 EO-image interpretations. The project created 5 mobile applications (City Oases, MijnPark, Paysages, CropSupport, Natura Alert) and 4 services (Campaigner, Change Detection, Quality Assurance, CropSupport) that contribute to LULC monitoring. Furthermore, LandSense yielded 23 journal publications (290+ citations), and 5 open access datasets (600+ downloads) thereby adding a significant contribution to the scholarship of citizen science, earth observation and LULC monitoring.
Furthermore, various actions have been taken to guarantee the continuity of key LandSense outputs and associated apps. Follow up has included the streamlining of the LandSense apps in the wider citizen science community through the WeObserve project Some key outputs that are being sustained beyond the lifetime of the project include Natura Alert, Picture Pile and the LandSense Authentication Server.
Natura Alert (
https://natura-alert.net/(opens in new window)) is a mobile app and web portal that allows users to pinpoint the location of threats to biodiversity and habitat changes, to prevent the further damage or loss to our biodiversity. We are particularly interested in threats that are occurring inside Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas, Key Biodiversity Areas and Natura 2000 sites in the European Union, although submitting records in other areas is also possible. Information on the condition of these sites, the threats to them, the conservation measures in place and the changes in these aspects over time are essential to set priorities, hold governments to account and inform policies and decision-makers. Volunteers can download our mobile app to quickly record their observations in the field or use the web app to discover more functionalities, such as visualizing reports from other users, creating dashboards per country and downloading their own reports. Continuity and sustainability of this app – which is unique in its threat reporting, is guaranteed through funding via the H2020 EuropaBON project (
https://europabon.org/(opens in new window)). Currently, there are plans for scaling the app to the Netherlands and Greece.
Picture Pile (
https://geo-wiki.org/games/picturepile/(opens in new window)) is a successful example of a tool developed as part of LandSense that has a wide and generic applicability beyond the project. The concept behind Picture Pile is simple and appealing. Players can help solve global problems by sorting through piles of pictures and satellite imagery to map for example forest degradation or urban expansion. Picture Pile has quickly grown as one of the standard apps in the wider citizen science toolkit available at IIASA and was part of the Earth Challenge 2020 initiative. The app will be sustained by a new ERC Proof of Concept project.
The LandSense Authentication Server will continue beyond LandSense as a service in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Through the H2020 Cos4Cloud project (
https://cos4cloud-eosc.eu/(opens in new window)) the LandSense Authentication Server will become a European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Community plugin. This will allow Authentication as a Service and will improve FAIR re-use of Citizen Science data with GDPR compliant personal information brokering and non-trackable unique user identifiers (
https://www.authenix.eu(opens in new window)).
