A Systematic Literature Review on the Participation Aspects of Environmental and Nature-Based Citizen Science Initiatives

Abstract

It is commonly argued that, despite the tremendous resonance Citizen Science (CS) has shown in recent years, there is still lack of understanding of important aspects defining citizens’ participation and engagement in CS initiatives. While CS initiatives could provide a vehicle to foster forms of participation contributing to the democratization of science, there is still limited attention paid to the “Citizen” component of the Citizen Science term. For the purpose of this work, we systematically reviewed the available literature for empirical studies in respect to citizens’ participation in environmental and nature-based CS initiatives established during the last two decades, using the PRISMA methodology. The participatory facet of the retrieved 119 CS initiatives was analysed on the basis of: (a) exclusion and inclusion demographic factors, (b) CS models and practices, (c) facilitators and constraints of citizen’s participation, and (d) environmental citizenship. Our findings show that the majority of the CS initiatives did not place restrictions on gender participation; however, we have identified that mostly highly educated adults participated in the reviewed initiatives. In addition, most of the CS initiatives reported in the literature were situated in the EU and USA, were mostly limited to the local scale, and primarily followed the contributory model. Academic institutions were found to coordinate the majority of the CS initiatives examined. By using digital technologies, academic scientists were able to control and increase data quality, as well as to engage a broader audience, even though they were mostly treating volunteers as “data collectors”, desiring their long-term engagement. Therefore, it will be of CS benefit to be better aligned with the mentality and needs of citizens. In this direction CS initiatives should trigger citizens’ learning gains and interpersonal/social benefits and personal, environmental, and social motivations, but also to shift their goals towards contributing to science and citizens’ connection with nature. On the other hand, there is a need to overcome any design and implementation barriers, and to enhance democratization through a more participative engagement of active and aware citizens, thus promoting environmental citizenship.

Evaluating a Novel Learning Intervention Grounded in the Education for Environmental Citizenship Pedagogical Approach: A Case Study from Cyprus

“…More specifically, previous studies found a positive association between first-hand experiences with nature and pro-environmentalism [66][67][68], while, in contrast, dissociation from nature was found to be related to hindering support for environmental causes [69,70]. In addition, an increasing corpus of studies has provided empirical substantiation for the claim that participation in environmental and nature-based Citizen Science (CS) projects may contribute to the transformation of citizens into environmentally responsible and active citizens [26,29,71]. In its essence, participation in environmentalrelated activities implies that people contribute to the environmental management process, and, in turn, this also affects and shapes their own lives.…”

“…During the last two years, researchers have collaborated at the European and international level as part of the European Network for Environmental Citizenship (ENEC) [22], trying to produce a coherent definition for "Education for Environmental Citizenship". The ENEC conceptualization has been widely used in the literature since 2018, due to its holisticness, inclusiveness and comprehensiveness [8,[25][26][27][28][29], and it is also adopted in this study. More specifically, according to ENEC: "Education for Environmental Citizenship is defined as the type of education that cultivates a coherent and adequate body of knowledge as well as the necessary skills, values, attitudes and competences that an Environmental Citizen should be equipped with in order to be able to act and participate in society as an agent of change in the private and public sphere on a local, national and global scale, through individual and collective actions in the direction of solving contemporary environmental problems, preventing the creation of new environmental problems, in achieving sustainability as well as developing a healthy relationship with nature.…”

Knowledge of returning wildlife species and willingness to participate in citizen science projects among wildlife park visitors in Germany

“…All three options might present barriers for senior age groups, e.g. a (possibly) strenuous field trip, a time-consuming workshop or the handling of an unknown technology (Vasiliades et al, 2021), especially when specific information on the future design of the programme is lacking. The possible enthusiasm about the wildlife park visit that prevailed when filling out the questionnaire, as well as the leisure time capacity of the younger respondents might also have led to a positive attitude towards CS activities.…”

Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Review of Provisioning and Cultural Ecosystem Services in Estuaries

“…To ensure transparency and clarity when reporting systematic reviews, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) methodology was adopted for this literature study [22][23][24] (Supplementary Materials). The data for this systematic review was collected from peer-reviewed papers in several databases with a high level of academic integrity, including Google Scholar, Science Direct, Research Gate, World Cat, and Web of Science [25][26][27].…”