Depiction of land cover data in different satellite products, especially cropland, is frequently uncertain. Many different products exist (e.g. Globcover, GLC-2000, MODIS, CCI, GlobeLand30) but their ability to represent the distribution of cropland globally in an accurate way is limited.
Developed at IIASA, Geo-Wiki uses crowdsourcing for
collecting and verifying land-cover data using very high esolution imagery from Google Earth and Bing. Registered olunteers can sign up for campaigns to validate land cover, land use, and the degree of human impact. These data are then used in combination with existing landbased roducts to produce improved maps of global and cover. Geo-Wiki validation data are freely available to download.
IIASA is using games and social networking to build a citizen scientists network. For example, well over 2,500 people have participated in the IIASA game, Cropland capture, on tablet, mobile phone, and desktop computer, alidating over 2.5 million km2 of land cover data: half the size of the EU. Picture Pile is helping to map deforestation and to rapidly identify buildings damaged by hurricanes. FotoQuest Go is getting citizens out into the field collecting
land-cover and land-use data across Europe.
A new project, LandSense, is led by an IIASA scientist to develop a citizen observatory on land cover and land use. By involving citizens in monitoring urban land-use change, agricultural areas and forests, the costs involved can be vastly reduced, while empowering citizens to
contribute to a diversity of environmental issues. Case studies will take place in Austria, France, Germany, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, and outside Europe in Indonesia.
Impacts
Crowdsourcing and Gaming Reveal Land Cover (PDF)
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
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