Mapping citizen science contributions to the UN sustainable development goals

Dilek Fraisl,Marianne Penker,Jessica L Oliver,Inian Moorthy,Jillian Campbell,Linda See,Uta Wehn,Rosa Arias,Jessica Wardlaw,Joan Masó,Margaret Gold,Steffen Fritz,Jaume Piera

doi:10.1007/s11625-020-00833-7

Abstract

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a vision for achieving a sustainable future. Reliable, timely, comprehensive, and consistent data are critical for measuring progress towards, and ultimately achieving, the SDGs. Data from citizen science represent one new source of data that could be used for SDG reporting and monitoring. However, information is still lacking regarding the current and potential contributions of citizen science to the SDG indicator framework. Through a systematic review of the metadata and work plans of the 244 SDG indicators, as well as the identification of past and ongoing citizen science initiatives that could directly or indirectly provide data for these indicators, this paper presents an overview of where citizen science is already contributing and could contribute data to the SDG indicator framework. The results demonstrate that citizen science is “already contributing” to the monitoring of 5 SDG indicators, and that citizen science “could contribute” to 76 indicators, which, together, equates to around 33%. Our analysis also shows that the greatest inputs from citizen science to the SDG framework relate to SDG 15 Life on Land, SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing, and SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation. Realizing the full potential of citizen science requires demonstrating its value in the global data ecosystem, building partnerships around citizen science data to accelerate SDG progress, and leveraging investments to enhance its use and impact.

Highlights

In September 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit adopted an international framework to guide global development efforts, entitled ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development’ (UN 2015)
Citizen science is already contributing to the monitoring of 5 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators, and could contribute, by providing direct or supplementary information, to 76 indicators
We examined the overlap between contributions from citizen science and Earth Observation (EO) to the SDG indicators, which was the case for 24 indicators, to identify the potential for these 2 data sources to complement each other

Summary

Introduction

In September 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit adopted an international framework to guide global development efforts, entitled ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development’ (UN 2015). Extended author information available on the last page of the article. Tasked a group of technical and statistical experts with developing a global monitoring framework that would allow the tracking of each SDG target, while at the same time keeping in mind the feasibility and reporting burden of such a monitoring framework. This led to the creation and adoption of the current list of 244 SDG indicators by the UN General Assembly (UN 2017)

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Discussion

Conclusion