FenoDato

Phenology is the science that studies the life stages of living beings (eg. flowering trees) and how they are influenced by seasonal and interannual climate variations, resulting of great interest for monitoring global change. For its study, the dates in which changes in the biological cycles of the species observed take place (phenological observations) are recorded.

Our proposal represents a citizen science initiative, which aims to involve the public not specialized in collecting phenological data. To do this, the use of the Twitter platform is proposed, to transmit the information on the observations (text and picture identification) and then add them to a common database, supplemented with an interoperable interactive map to represent the data collected in real time. In addition, a validation mechanism for the observations is proposed, through an application for mobile devices consisting in a game where users are challenged to identify species and phenological phases (phenological stages) first to evaluate its criteria and subsequently to check the quality of other observations.

The action is directed to the general public unspecialised, although the dissemination will be focused to the most related groups (hiking centers, farmers, natural parks, tourist shops, schools, etc). Participants will have instructions and advice guidance to ensure rigor in the observations and to promote scientific culture. The idea stems from the synergy between the will of the Meteorological Service of Catalonia (SMC) to expand its network of observers and the interest of the CREAF and the UAB to contribute to the development of geographic information technologies for citizenship.

At the end of the action, maintenance of the developments will be transferred to the SMC and the code of the app will be published as open source.