Engagement of Online Communities Within a Citizen Science Framework for Improving Innovative Participation Models: Insights from Hydrology and Environmental Monitoring

Abstract

Citizen science is a set of methodological approaches aimed at engaging general public in the processes of co-production and sharing of scientific knowledge to face societal needs and environmental challenges. Its main fields of application concerns environmental sciences, earth observation and urban planning, by introducing human and socio-cultural perspectives into technical and scientific tasks. New developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), remote sensing and data processing pave the way to new crowdsourcing activities for social engagement, volunteers’ recruitment and organization. In particular, social media systems allow rapid sharing of information at low cost connecting and organizing people within online communities. Citizen science can constitute an innovative theoretical framework within which online communities can be engaged for production of new forms of knowledge and for giving innovative perspective in organizational processes. The aim of the paper is to pose general reflection to build a conceptual transdisciplinary framework for the integration of online communities as part of citizen science projects integrating insights deriving from its application for hydrology and water resources management.