Citizeen. Mapping green and blue spaces in the city.
Citizeen is a smartphone app that uses satellite navigation, combined with satellite Earth observation and AI, to locate the user and map the surrounding green and blue spaces, as well as nearby biodiversity. Citizeen promotes active mobility in urban natural spaces, allowing users to access and co-create contents about thermal comfort, vegetation density and scientific curiosities. Being a playful, intuitive and rich application, it intends to be a means of educating active citizens of all ages
Local
Portugal
Coimbra.
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
Horizon2020 / Horizon Europe
Citizeen won the first cascade call within the PHArA-ON project financed by the call H2020-SC1-FA-DTS-2018-2020, Horizon2020 Pilots for Healthy and Active Ageing to support testing the prototype with users from the portuguese pilot city Coimbra.
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): OUR WATCH LEADS - OWL, LDA Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Pedro Last name of representative: Resende Gender: Male Nationality: Portugal Function: CEO Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua Pedro Nunes Incubadora IPN Edifício C Town: Coimbra Postal code: 3030-199 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 915 619 977 E-mail:info@ourwatchleads.com Website:https://ourwatchleads.com
Name of the organisation(s): Caritas Coimbra Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Elisabete Last name of representative: Pitarma Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Project Manager Innovation Department Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua D. Francisco de Almeida, n 14 Town: Coimbra Postal code: 3030-382 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 960 018 118 E-mail:elisabetepitarma@caritascoimbra.pt Website:https://en.caritascoimbra.pt
Name of the organisation(s): University of Coimbra Type of organisation: University or another research institution First name of representative: Maria Last name of representative: Feio Gender: Female Nationality: Portugal Function: Scientist - Project Coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua Larga, Edifício FMUC R/Ch Esq., Universidade de Coimbra Town: Coimbra Postal code: 3004-504 Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 916 320 836 E-mail:mjf@ci.uc.pt Website:https://www.uc.pt/en
Citizeen is a smartphone app that uses satellite navigation, combined with satellite Earth observation and AI, to locate the user and map the surrounding green and blue spaces within urban or peri-urban environments. Citizeen aim to promote the contact of citizens with the blue (rivers and streams) and green (vegetated) areas near their homes for a more active and healthier life. These ecosystems can be important biodiversity reservoirs, providing important services to the population such as better air quality, temperature extremes and flood mitigation, offering leisure and social areas, as well as outdoor laboratories for environmental education. Citizeen provides users with information on thermal comfort, vegetation density and scientific curiosities, promoting the active engagement of citizens with these urban natural ecosystems, thus improving mobility while stimulating cognitive capacities. It will grow through the co-creation of interactive maps, fed by upload of in situ information, photos, biodiversity and problems associated with these urban ecosystems. A rich Citizeen community, made up mostly by common citizens (including a rich variety of nature enthusiasts like hikers, sports lovers in nature, nature photographers, birdwatchers, beachcombers) but also scientist, will support the construction of scientific knowledge, relevant to the preservation and management of natural urban environments. Citizeen encourage citizens to be active and search for safer and easily accessible blue and green areas near their houses, where they can appreciate the feeling of well-being, tranquility, but also participate or organize projects (e.g. community gardens, invasive species control, weeds control, outdoor group sports very important in current pandemic scenario and from now on, clean-ups with garbage collection, reforestation with native species), being a mean of educating active citizens of all ages and interests.
Biodiversity
Co-creation
Mapping
Georeferencing
Education
Citizeen is a smartphone app that uses satellite navigation, combined with satellite Earth observation and AI, to locate the user and map the surrounding green and blue spaces within urban or peri-urban environments. Citizeen aim to promote the contact of citizens with the blue (rivers and streams) and green (vegetated) areas near their homes for a more active and healthier life. These ecosystems can be important biodiversity reservoirs, providing important services to the population such as better air quality, temperature extremes and flood mitigation, offering leisure and social areas, as well as outdoor laboratories for environmental education. Citizeen provides users with information on thermal comfort, vegetation density and scientific curiosities, promoting the active engagement of citizens with these urban natural ecosystems, thus improving mobility while stimulating cognitive capacities. It will grow through the co-creation of interactive maps, fed by upload of in situ information, photos, biodiversity and problems associated with these urban ecosystems. A rich Citizeen community, made up mostly by common citizens (including a rich variety of nature enthusiasts like hikers, sports lovers in nature, nature photographers, birdwatchers, beachcombers) but also scientist, will support the construction of scientific knowledge, relevant to the preservation and management of natural urban environments. Citizeen encourage citizens to be active and search for safer and easily accessible blue and green areas near their houses, where they can appreciate the feeling of well-being, tranquillity, but also participate or organize projects (e.g. community gardens, invasive species control, weeds control, outdoor group sports very important in current pandemic scenario and from now on, clean-ups with garbage collection, reforestation with native species), being a mean of educating active citizens of all ages and interests.
In terms of aesthetics and user experience, Citizeen was designed using an interface well known and tested in apps like LinkedIn and Instagram, a simple footer menu is included with the several separators accessible and clear, freeing the majority of screen space for the maps and photographs to be protagonists.
The interactive maps are designed in a google maps logic, where miniatures of the georeferenced photos of biodiversity, places of interest and problems can be seen, in green, blue and red colors respectively. The user feels the sense of contributing to the enriching of the app, and by co-creating content is adding in-situ precision and details of the green and blue spaces. With the passing of the seasons and the sightings of animal species the maps and the digital twins gain the dimension of time.
In terms of inclusion, the main objectives that Citizeen addresses are inclusive accessibility, affordability by allowing access to the app through the free plan, inclusive governing systems and designing for all.
Citizeen was developed to be used by older adults, the group of citizens with less digital competences, thus complying with usage requirements that ensure the inclusion of various users (from the least digitally literate to the most). It was designed to be attractive, easy to use, secure, providing a fun experience for everyone. It brings together scientific content about green and blue areas, with an educational character, and allows users to add useful/relevant information for
other citizens (e.g. cultural and leisure activities, biodiversity,
accessibility and safety).
The app allows free usage for the common citizen, and, in this sense, is democratizing the access to the technology and data, with contents available after registration, providing learning opportunities to more and more people to join and contribute, a much-needed civic participation that strives to protect nature.
Satellite and co-created content contribute to greener and smarter cities, citizens in harmony with the surrounding environment, favouring the design, planning and management of quality green and blue areas, in order to optimize ecosystem services, thus guaranteeing better health and well- being. The pilot site Coimbra
is being a very good test, since the team is already working together with the
municipality and water supply companies to understand what can be the future
added value created to inform municipal management.
Furthermore, it will also be possible to map the features and accesses of each of the urban green and blue spaces, to understand where issues like
Citizens will benefit by achieving better health and well-being (following the revolutionary One Health approach), where human health is directly connected with the health of the surrounding animal and environmental health. Protecting nature, having a sense of belonging/purpose, improving active mobility and reconnecting with the urban green and blue spaces are also activities that drive well-being which, alongside offering temporal escapes and nature challenges, makes Citizeen a promoter of more positive thoughts and feelings, reducing the stress of its users and, at the same time developing their cognitive skills and interaction with the environment.
At a later stage, citizens will also benefit by having decision makers with access to the app’s future digital twins and parameters, that allow a more informed planning and management of green and blue spaces, with decisions that go beyond aesthetics, towards environments of ecological quality.
The civil society has been engaged through the PHArA-ON project financed by the call H2020-SC1-FA-DTS-2018-2020, Horizon2020 Pilots for Healthy and Active Ageing to support testing the prototype with users from the portuguese pilot city Coimbra and in the program “Geração Cooletiva” (Colective generation) organized by Coimbra Cooletiva (https://coimbracoolectiva.pt/historias/geracao-coolectiva-inclui-programa-de-capacitacao-que-mentores-consideram-util-necessaria-e-urgente/).
While the PHArA-ON project has allowed to test the app with caregivers and older citizens that belong to the Caritas Coimbra’s network, as well as provided the support of the University of Coimbra scientists, that are curating the scientific rigor and feature development.
As for the program “Geração Cooletiva”, involves the capacitation of the team working together with mentors and a group of 40 Coimbra citizen’s, that will test and give feedback, and will join the rising number of early adopters.
Citizeen won the cascade grant from the PHArA-ON project financed by the call H2020-SC1-FA-DTS-2018-2020, Horizon2020 Pilots for Healthy and Active Ageing to support testing the prototype with users from the portuguese pilot city Coimbra, and is developing and testing the app with the support of the scientists community of the University of Coimbra, as well as tailoring the app with inclusive design for older people with the help of the volunteers from Caritas Coimbra.
The team is participating in the program “Geração Cooletiva” (Colective generation) organized by Coimbra Cooletiva a series of workshops with menthors and early adopters.
The municipal government, through the internal team Coimbra City Lab has worked together with the Citizeen team to assess the added value of the data produced, and has arranged meetings to help building the use-case of the data for the municipal government teams of Urban Planning, Green Spaces and the main Water Supply Company “Águas de Coimbra”.
The team also relies on the support of the European Space Agency Business Incubation Center Alumni Network and of the European Union Space Program Agency, that have been introducing the team to potential investors and market opportunities.
The solution leverages the holistic view of Satellite Earth Observation and the power of georeferencing data with Satellite Navigation.
Citizeen relies on the Satellite Earth Observation to develop the processed indexes that inform the users about health and location of vegetation, water in the soil or drought areas, land surface temperature, heat or cold waves and urban heat islands and air quality.
The app also takes advantage of the developments in smartphones technology, by using Galileo’s Satellite Navigation dual frequency, available in the majority of the smartphones. This combination allows to improve the accuracy of the delivered Green and Blue area maps, since the users will be able to georeference their photographs with higher precision, which consequently can improve the classification and mapping of the sites.
The future stage of the development will use the BIM technology to build the city’s digital twins, with interactive parameters/layers such as the indexes of vegetation, temperature, water and air conditions, as well as the in-situ information of biodiversity, places of interest and reported problems, combined with satellite acquired topography, building implantation and height.
By combining the type of satellite data processed indexes that scientists and biologists use to assess ecosystems, the in-situ citizen science co-created by users, as well as the digital twins used by architects and civil engineers, Citizeen will contribute to improve the way decision makers and project designers look at our cities and territories. Citizeen is about having a better degree of control of the impacts of artificialization when planning urban development, to be informed with concrete data when designing a building or neighbourhood, to know what are the natural spaces that should be protected and amplified, and the unsustainable neighbourhoods where the green infrastructure can be enhanced.
In terms of state-of-the-art and existing alternatives, Greenspaces and U-GEO are high-end competitors that are more adopted by professionals and municipalities for precision landscaping, while PlantNet and INaturalist are communities based on flora identification apps that do not include all the parameters that Satellite Earth Observation provides. None of these alternatives allows users to georeference features and problems of the green and blue spaces, nor to assess the thermal comfort of these spaces, besides these features.
Citizeen differentiates itself by democratizing the satellite data so that the common citizen has means to access and leverage satellite data. It is a user centric digital application, a community-based app, where users can create posts, locating points of interest or problem photos, find new water lines, rate the city’s green spaces in several parameters such as mobility, pet friendliness, sports facilities, safeness, thermal comfort and air quality.
Citizeen creates a community for citizens and caregivers, with the added value of promoting social cohesion. By uploading in-situ information, users will co-create the interactive maps of the Urban Green and Blue Areas, strengthening the relations and the sense of solidarity among members of the community, as they will have an active participation in scientific knowledge-building and environment conservation, while stimulating their cognitive skills and enhancing their sense of purpose/usefulness and of belonging.
Forming this community will reduce isolation and loneliness, enhancing the autonomy through a better degree of understanding and connecting with nature and among users, as well as allow users to feel more up-to-date and closer to younger generations, by using digital tools and Satellite Earth observation Data.
Thinking about the global impact, Citizeen can also be reproduced in other pilot cities, with focus on improving citizens' interaction with urban green and blue areas. The added value of this action is to have a co-created product, where satellite data provides the holistic view of the Urban Green and Blue Areas, and the citizens users provide higher resolution in-situ information. Together with Machine Learning and Deep Learning, this information is used to improve mapping and soil use classification results. Municipal Governments will be interested in purchasing the interactive maps, optimizing the hydric resources spent in watering the Green Areas, update the territory mapping, and also avoid the artificialization of Green/Blue Areas in new urban developments. The common citizens will be also interested in using the app, since the innovative parameters and features also provide an enhanced experience for the common urban dweller or tourist. These are plenty of new potential opportunities, and other cities will look at the pilot city Coimbra as a reference to follow.
The team is running the project using 2-week sprints, each of which resulting in a demo of running software to assess progress and clarify next steps, together with Caritas coordinators, the scientists of the University of Coimbra and Pharaon technical partners.
The status reports reflect the results from the sprints, and are produced 60 days and 120 days after the pilot in Coimbra began in 7th of September 2022, these status reports include risk assessments and mitigation steps. The strategy here is to have a controlled work every two weeks, simplifying both the process and its summary, making it easy to compile the information for the 2nd month and the 4th month reports.
The team provides the software development, including testing of the solution and Content Management System, allowing all partners to independently test the results and provide feedback. This will be fundamental since one of the goals of the implementation is to start to “train the early adopters”, on how to use the Citizeen app, so that they, in turn, can explain it to other groups of citizens.
At the final stage of the action, between month 5 and 6, the detail stage will be put into practice, to fine tune the app and tailor it to the feedback of both trainers and older citizens and to launch a public crowdfunding campaign, preparing a runway for the company to reach other european cities, in the next two years.
The global challenges that Citizeen addresses are to reconnect people with nature, to protect and improve the Urban Green and Blue Spaces and to promote a sense of purpose.
The app is contributing to these challenges by providing information and a democratized tool to co-create content and to spread awareness on the issues related to the Green Infrastructure. The team believes that by promoting active mobility and civic participation in these spaces, the users will gain a sense of purpose and of belonging, and the local communities will flourish and serve as international examples.
Citizeen has been receiving the green evaluation by the Pharaon program and is completing the pilot in Coimbra.
The team will continue developing the use-case with the municipal government of Coimbra, to showcase to other municipalities the added value of the co-created data.
The next steps are to leverage the Pharaon program and Geração Cooletiva early adopters, to accelerate the company by fund raising with public and private capital, as well as to launch a public crowdfunding campaign, preparing a runway for the company to reach other european cities, in the next two years.
Citizeen can contribute to equip citizens with the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for a greener and more sustainable economy and society, by promoting civic participation and active mobility in urban green and blue spaces.
As well as to create a shared understanding on the deep and transformative changes needed in spreading contents about sustainability and the green transition. The app is being designed to create a community that inspires the collective action of protecting nature spaces, creating more content about surrounding biodiversity and places of interest, which by consequence will create value for city dwellers and tourists to reconnect with nature in their places of residency or leisure.
