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UID:pretalx-citizen-science-communication-trust-2026-FMD9XU@ifkw.rz.tu-bs.d
 e
DTSTART;TZID=CET:20261005T160000
DTEND;TZID=CET:20261005T161500
DESCRIPTION:Khim Cathleen Saddi 1\, Gaia Proietti 2\, Kacper Malec 3\, and 
 Salvatore Manfreda 1\n\n1 Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile\, Edile e Ambi
 entale (DICEA)\, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II\, Napoli\, 
 Italy\;\n2 UNESCO Chair in Water Resources Management and Culture\, Univer
 sity for Foreigners of Perugia\, Perugia\, Italy\;\n3 Faculty of Civil and
  Environmental Engineering\, Gdańsk University of Technology\, Gdańsk\, 
 Poland.\n\nCitizen-led initiatives tackling global challenges such as envi
 ronmental monitoring are growing in recent years\, especially when the cit
 izen scientists are also direct stakeholders (e.g.\, in water quality). Cu
 rrently\, the confidence of the scientific community in these projects whe
 re data are collected\, generated\, or analyzed by citizen scientists stil
 l remains low. Therefore\, it is necessary to develop a citizen science re
 search framework to elevate scientific merit of citizen science research b
 y the citizen for the citizen. \n\nIn this work\, we expanded and enriched
  the RiverWatch initiative by co-designing\, and co-creating knowledge wit
 h three partner communities in their local rivers\, while also promoting a
  global citizen science observatory in river plastic pollution. RiverWatch
  is a citizen science initiative that was developed to create a virtual ob
 servatory to monitor pollution in the Sarno River in Italy. A web app has 
 been developed that allows users to collect image data of plastic debris f
 lowing in rivers\, tag the type of plastic (e.g.\, plastic bottle\, bags\,
  etc.)\, and report simple turbidity levels using their smartphones. Build
 ing a rich image database was key to training accurate\, generalizable AI 
 models for plastic detection and enhancing their accuracy and generalizabi
 lity across diverse environmental contexts. We engaged the citizen scienti
 sts in three phases: 1) data collection using the RiverWatch web app (co-c
 reation)\, 2) technical and design improvement of the RiverWatch web app (
 co-design)\, and 3) development of the Riverwatch Citizen Science Data Qua
 lity Framework for river monitoring (co-development). The overarching goal
  is to increase scientific merit of citizen science projects and empower c
 itizens to support decision-makers in water management\,  building on prev
 ious work and advancements in river water quality monitoring and citizen s
 cience of RiverWatch project.\n\nKeywords: Citizen Science\, plastic pollu
 tion\, AI models\, CS quality
DTSTAMP:20260721T202342Z
LOCATION:Room 1
SUMMARY:citizens4rivers: A citizen observatory advancing river pollution mo
 nitoring - Khim Cathleen Saddi\, Gaia Proietti\, Kacper Malec
URL:https://ifkw.rz.tu-bs.de/citizen-science-communication-trust-2026/talk/
 FMD9XU/
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