SY011-0002
Citizen Science in the Upper Blue Nile Basin: Capturing the Hydrological Cycle and Catalyzing Community Participation
Tuesday, 8 December 2020
Poster
Genevieve Rigler1, Zoi Dokou2, Fahad Khan Khadim1, Wangchi Zhou3, Teshome Lemma Yami4, Mamaru Moges5, Seifu Admassu Tilahun6, Muluken Azage5, Xingyu Wang7, Baikun Li8, Amvrossios C Bagtzoglou7, Yang Hong9, Elizabeth Holzer10, Emmanouil N Anagnostou7 and Mamaru Moges, (1)University of Connecticut, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Groton, CT, United States, (2)California State University Sacramento, Civil Engineering, Sacramento, CA, United States, (3)University of Connecticut, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Storrs, United States, (4)University of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Norman, OK, United States, (5)Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, (6)Associate professor, Civil and Water Resources Engineering Faculity, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, (7)University of Connecticut, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Storrs, CT, United States, (8)University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States, (9)School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, United States, (10)University of Connecticut, Department of Sociology, Storrs, CT, United States
Abstract:
Unpredictable rainfall in the Upper Blue Nile Basin contributes to food and water insecurity which often leads to economic loss for famers, making agricultural development challenging. To address some of these challenges, a multi-year collaborative endeavor between USA, European and Ethiopian Institutions was established by way of a NSF funded PIRE project, which seeks to understand how the relationships between scientists, farmers and water managers influence the production, dissemination, and outcome of new scientific knowledge. As part of this objective, a Citizen Science Initiative (CSI) began in 2017 with the aim to facilitate the development of the forecast, alleviate data scarcity challenges and catalyze local community engagement. This initiative is working to establish that high schoolers, farmers and scientists both locally and internationally co-create usable, quality data sets in data-scarce regions.
Four communities in the Amhara region of Ethiopia were selected by social scientists participating in the project. Both male and female high school students and male farmers from these communities serve as citizen scientists, collecting soil moisture, river stage and groundwater level data. These datasets are transmitted via an e-Ping App developed specifically for use by the students and farmers with the capability to upload both text and data. In addition to these activities, the students are engaged with professors and graduate students at Bahir Dar University where they will be learning to synthesize and communicate the data they have collected and are participating in longitudinal studies to evaluate if participation has encouraged further involvement with the STEM field.
This international collaboration requires extensive planning and communication not only to train the citizen scientists and collect the data, but also to process the data after the fact. Currently, the data sets are being used by researchers to calibrate models and to validate the forecast. In addition to creating protocols for validating the quality of the citizen science data, recommendations for best practices for citizen science projects in data-scarce regions emerged and are presented here.
