Challenges and opportunities of engaging biodiversity-related citizen science data in environmental decision-making: Practitioners’ perceptions and a database analysis from Estonia

Abstract

Citizen Science (CS) based environmental monitoring has become popular in many countries, but implementing CS projects in Eastern European countries is often challenging due to their socio-political transition histories, low social capital, and relatively short traditions of civic participation. CS in Eastern Europe has received little academic interest. However, it is a promising research field, considering the potential impacts’ discourse of the recent socio-political past on current institutional structures. Focusing on biodiversity-related CS and decision-making, we mapped problems and opportunities of CS data use in environmental decision-making practices in Estonia. We conducted a database analysis, investigating the links between CS data (as in the Estonian Nature Observation’s Database) and official data (as of the Estonian Environmental Register). We also conducted qualitative interviews and an e-mail survey among environmental practitioners, as potential users of CS data, to map their perceptions about challenges in CS data use. Practitioners’ interviews were complemented with interviews with coordinators of three different CS biodiversity monitoring initiatives, which are run by either governmental agencies, universities or NGOs. We found that practitioners are interested in using CS data but current use is difficult because of the perceived problematic quality and reliability of data (e.g., inaccuracy in locating observations or identifying species) and user-friendliness of databases (e.g., data scattered across different portals). Opportunities to overcome these problems might include an option to foster better cooperation between national official information systems on CS data, but also a wider institutional support for CS.