Chapter 08 · Finance, data & evidenceData, Technology & Verification Systems
Citizen science
Definition
The non-professional involvement of volunteers in the scientific process — most commonly data collection, but also quality assurance, analysis, problem definition and dissemination. In sustainability it spans biodiversity recording, air and water quality sensing, waste auditing and community-based natural-resource monitoring.
References
Definition (non-professional volunteer involvement across the scientific process); role in Green Deal monitoring; Aarhus Convention link.
~33% of SDG indicators addressable; 63% of MEA indicators; Paris Agreement, Sendai and GBF monitoring potential.
Overview
What it means
Citizen science converts distributed public participation into monitoring capacity that official statistics lack. Research mapping its contributions found citizen-science data are contributing, or could contribute, to monitoring roughly a third of SDG indicators, and 63% of indicators across 12 multilateral environmental agreements.
EU institutions treat it as a complementary evidence base for the European Green Deal — biodiversity strategy, zero-pollution ambition, circular-economy monitoring — and as a vehicle for the Aarhus Convention's participatory rights. Persistent challenges: data quality assurance, representativeness, and integration into official statistical systems.
How it is used
Environmental agencies blend citizen data with reference monitoring (air quality, species occurrence); platforms (iNaturalist, eBird, sensor networks) feed research and reporting; regulators and NGOs use citizen-generated data for accountability where official data are absent or contested.
Why it matters
Citizen science democratises environmental evidence — filling monitoring gaps for the SDGs and biodiversity frameworks while building the public engagement that environmental governance depends on.