Collaborating With Communities: Citizen Science Flood Monitoring in Urban Informal Settlements

Abstract

Concerns regarding the impacts of climate change on marginalised communities in the Global South have led to calls for affected communities to be more active as agents in the process of planning for climate change. While the value of involving communities in risk management is increasingly accepted, the development of appropriate tools to support community engagement in flood risk management projects remains nascent. Using the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments Program as a case study, the article interrogates the potential of citizen science to include disadvantaged urban communities in project-level flood risk reduction planning processes. This project collected more than 5,000 photos taken by 26 community members living in 13 informal settlements in Fiji and Indonesia between 2018 and 2020. The case study documents the method used as well as the results achieved within this two-year project. It discusses the method developed and implemented, outlines the main results, and provides lessons learned for others embarking on citizen science environmental monitoring projects. The case study indicates that the engagement model and the technology used were key to the success of the flood-monitoring project. The experiences with the practice of monitoring floods in collaboration with communities in Fiji and Indonesia provide insights into how similar projects could advance more participatory risk management practices. The article identifies how this kind of approach can collect valuable flood data while also promoting opportunities for local communities to be heard in the arena of risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

Identifying relevant volunteered geographic information about adverse weather events in Trondheim using the CitizenSensing participatory system

“…We have also experienced uneven engagement in the VGI collection process. Although such irregularity throughout the project period has been also observed in other projects (Wolff et al, 2021), surprisingly the lower engagement of our participants were during weekends.…”

“…Our study also revealed that the production of relevant VGI requires data vetting that in turn needs adequate participatory tools created with the engagement of end users. The need for the engagement of end users was also raised by Wolff et al (2021) who found it, together with the technology used, as key to the success of their participatory project concerning flood monitoring in urban informal settlements. In the case of the CitizenSensing system, the stakeholder co-design process guided the design of the system’s three main components (a web application, a data management and storage component, and a web portal) and determined the optimal content and functionalities.…”

“…As a result, decision makers retrieved first-hand information that was used to help identify damages and plan relief efforts. Another example concerns the use of WhatsApp to send photos of the flood gauges daily to monitor water levels during flooding (Wolff et al, 2021).…”

Urban Climate Justice, Human Health, and Citizen Science in Nairobi’s Informal Settlements

“…The Mukuru SPA process also revealed how research can lead to tangible, health-promoting actions, such as improved roads and a sewer system, that will benefit local residents and the entire city [68,69]. The Mukuru citizen science processes also suggest that those living in informal settlements have unique and valuable expertise that must be integrated into adaptation planning in order to achieve climate justice [70,71].…”

Implementing participatory nature-based solutions in the Global South

“…Residents acting as citizen scientists collected photos of floods that helped researchers within RISE to better understand the local hydrology in the peripheries of Suva (Fiji) and Makassar (Indonesia). Between 2018 and 2020, this project collected a comprehensive archive of more than 5,000 photos of flood levels that informed the design of the constructed wetlands (Wolff et al, 2021). This project illustrates that, while co-designed approaches allow a deeper engagement with communities it also introduces new responsibilities that need to be negotiated with participants.…”