Jaume Piera

Spanish National Research Council | CSIC · Department of Physical and Technological Oceanography

The project "Impactos-CC: Understanding and Enhancing the Impacts of Citizen Science in Spain" has pioneered the collaborative development of a tool to measure the impacts of citizen science at national level. This tool is mainly based on the work of nearly a hundred scientists in Spain, as well as previous work carried out by other European resear...

Macroplastic pollution is a pervasive global environmental challenge, adversely affecting marine ecosystems, wildlife and human health. Understanding temporal variations is crucial for identifying pollution sources and developing effective mitigation policies. However, in-situ data from beach surveys are often irregular, both spatially and temporal...

We are in a time of rapid change on multiple levels. Change can be seen as positive by one group and negative by another. As a result, different perspectives on any given change can draw completely different conclusions. In these proceedings we want to address different approaches to change from all kinds of perspectives within the realm of citizen...

Citizen Science is a powerful tool for biodiversity research, as it facilitates data recording at large scales that would otherwise be impossible to cover by standard academic research. Despite its benefits, the accuracy of citizen science data remains a subject of concern among scientists, with varying results reported so far. Neither citizen scie...

Anthropogenic beach litter presents a significant environmental challenge, particularly in the north-east Atlantic. Understanding temporal variations is crucial for identifying pollution sources and developing effective policies. However, in-situ data from beach surveys are irregular, both spatially and temporally, and subject to high variability,...

The MICS project has developed a platform, tools and resources for assessing the impact of citizen-science projects. Using both rule-based systems and neural networks, the MICS platform scores planned, current or past citizen-science projects on their anticipated or achieved impact across five “domains”: society, science, governance, the economy an...

The talk will highlight the citizen-science aspects of ProBleu, a European Commission--funded project that is promoting citizen science to mobilise and engage children, youth, teachers, and school communities in implementing the EU’s Mission Starfish, and restoring oceans and waters across 40 countries. By encouraging open schooling, which combines...

Accurate and traceable measurements are required to understand ocean processes, to address pressing societal challenges, such as climate change and to sustainably manage marine resources. Although scientific and engineering research has resulted in advanced methods to measure Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) there is a need for cross comparison of...

Citizen Science brings together scientists and public participants to collaborate on a wide range of applications and fields. With this approach, Citizen Science advances scientific research and communication while accounting for various stakeholders. Across many Citizen Science projects, digital discussion platforms play an essential role for self...

Human activities continue to degrade oceanic, coastal and inland waters. The generational change in the role of society in actively looking after the health of water resources can be achieved through the expansion of ocean and water literacy in schools. The Network of European Blue Schools established under the EU4Ocean Coalition for Ocean Literacy...

Online discussions play a vital role in today’s society and recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) demonstrate promising potential for analyzing and facilitating them. This paper proposes a comprehensive framework that involves developing NLP tools based on the latest advances in Large Language Models (LLMs), creating and automating m...

Human activities continue to degrade oceanic, coastal and inland waters. The generational change in the role of society in actively looking after the health of water resources can be achieved through the expansion of ocean and water literacy in schools. The Network of European Blue Schools established under the EU4Ocean Coalition for Ocean Literacy...

Citizen observatories can play an important role in research, engaging the wider public on scientific topics and enabling citizens to share observations with experts. We spoke to Dr Jaume Piera and Ángela Justamante about the work of the Cos4Cloud project in developing technological services designed to enhance citizen science observatories.

We analyze the efficacy of using a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) modular instrument to estimate the diffuse attenuation coefficient (Kd ) of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), which can be used for operational oceanography in turbid shallow waters. This parameter evaluates the water transparency, as it summarizes several water components providing a...

Current complex issues of climate change require the deployment of different ways of engaging everyday citizens in actions to understand and participate in the management of its facets and impacts. Research in relation to climate change mitigation and adaptation has shown that a shared appreciation of the problem between scientists, social actors a...

Effective citizen engagement is generally accepted as one of the most important steps for the success of citizen science programs. However, there is a lack of a common theoretical framework for recruitment and most projects rely on intuition or trial-and-error to develop their engagement strategies. Effective citizen science engagement needs theore...

The definition of a sensor monitoring strategy is based on the location for water monitoring, sensor performances, data storage and transmission. For any new sensor, available instruments currently used in oceanographic studies are identified to perform comparisons. Suitable transmission technology is selected according to the test conditions: open...

Citizen science is an increasingly acknowledged approach applied in many scientific domains, and particularly within the environmental and ecological sciences, in which non-professional participants contribute to data collection to advance scientific research. We present contributory citizen science as a valuable method to scientists and practition...

Shelf waters near large cities, such as Barcelona, are affected not only by meteorological episodes but also by anthropogenic influence. Scientists usually use data from on-site coastal platforms to analyze and understand these complex water ecosystems because remote sensing satellites have low spatiotemporal resolution and do not provide reliable...

There is a growing acknowledgement that citizen observatories, and other forms of citizengenerated data, have a significant role in tracking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This is evident in the increasing number of Sustainable Development Goals’ indicators for which such data are already being used and in the high-level recogn...

The oceans are a fundamental source for climate balance, sustainability of resources and life on Earth, therefore society has a strong and pressing interest in maintaining and, where possible, restoring the health of the marine ecosystems. Effective, integrated ocean observation is key to suggesting actions to reduce anthropogenic impact from coast...

The ongoing contemporary biodiversity crisis may result in much of ocean’s biodiversity to be lost or deeply modified without even being known. As the climate and anthropogenic-related impacts on marine systems accelerate, biodiversity knowledge integration is urgently required to evaluate and monitor marine ecosystems and to support suitable respo...

The Ocean has shaped human societies, providing resources and ways of communication, trade, exploration and expansion. Understanding the interactions with Society in the past and the present, is essential to tackle the challenges that face the future of the Ocean. With that aim, this chapter develops the consilience between Ocean Science, Social Sc...

ICTs, personal data, digital rights, the GDPR, data privacy, online security… these terms, and the concepts behind them, are increasingly common in our lives. Some of us may be familiar with them, but others are less aware of the growing role of ICTs and data in our lives - and the potential risks this creates. These risks are even more pronounced...

Measuring the diffuse attenuation coefficient (Kd) allows for monitoring the water body’s environmental status. This parameter is of particular interest in water quality monitoring programs because it quantifies the presence of light and the euphotic zone’s depth. Citizen scientists can meaningfully contribute by monitoring water quality, complemen...

Thermal variables are crucial drivers of biological processes in lakes and ponds. In the current context of climate change, determining which factors better constrain their variation within lake districts become of paramount importance for understanding species distribution and their conservation. In this study, we describe the regional and short-t...

Citizen Science (CS) is a prominent field of application for Open Science (OS), and the two have strong synergies, such as: advocating for the data and metadata generated through science to be made publicly available [ 1 ]; supporting more equitable collaboration between different types of scientists and citizens; and facilitating knowledge transfe...

Interest in the formal representation of citizen science comes from portals, platforms, and catalogues of citizen science projects; scientists using citizen science data for their research; and funding agencies and governments interested in the impact of citizen science initiatives. Having a common understanding and representation of citizen scienc...

Interest in the formal representation of citizen science comes from portals, platforms, and catalogues of citizen science projects; scientists using citizen science data for their research; and funding agencies and governments interested in the impact of citizen science initiatives. Having a common understanding and representation of citizen scienc...

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, in...

The European-Commission—funded project ‘Citclops’ (Citizens’ observatory for coast and ocean optical monitoring) developed methods, tools and sensors, which can be used by citizens to monitor natural waters, with a strong focus on long-term data series related to environmental sciences. The new sensors, based on optical technologies, respond to a n...

Highlights • New technologies supporting data collection, data processing and visualisation, and the communication of ideas and results create a wide range of opportunities for participation in citizen science. • Technologies are especially beneficial for opening additional channels for public involvement in research, allowing participants to contr...

The functionality available on modern ‘smartphone’ mobile devices, along with mobile application software and access to the mobile web, have opened up a wide range of ways for volunteers to participate in environmental and biodiversity research by contributing wildlife and environmental observations, geospatial information, and other context-specif...

A deconvolution approach is presented to use spectral light absorption and attenuation data to estimate the concentration of the major non-water compounds in complex shelf sea waters. The inversion procedure requires knowledge of local material-specific inherent optical properties (SIOPs) which are determined from natural samples using a bio-optica...

Apps for mobile devices and web-based platforms are increasingly used in citizen science projects. While extensive research has been done in multiple areas of studies, from Human-Computer Interaction to public engagement in science, we are not aware of a collection of recommendations specific for citizen science that provides support and advice for...

Apps for mobile devices and web-based platforms are increasingly used in citizen science projects. While extensive research has been done in multiple areas of studies, from Human-Computer Interaction to public engagement in science, we are not aware of a collection of recommendations specific for citizen science that provides support and advice for...

Mobile apps and web-based platforms are increasingly used in citizen science projects. While extensive research has been done in multiple areas of studies, from Human-Computer Interaction to public engagement in science, we are not aware of a collection of recommendations specific for citizen science that provides support and advice for planning, d...

The influx of warmer and saltier Indian Ocean waters into the Atlantic-the Agulhas leakage-is now recognized to play an important role in the global thermohaline circulation and climate. In this study the results of a 1/12° simulation with the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model, which exhibit an augmentation in the Agulhas leakage, is investigated. This...

The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO) is a large-scale, distributed, Marine Research Infrastructure (RI). EMSO consists of ocean observation systems for long-term, high-resolution, (near) real-time monitoring of environmental processes including natural hazards, climate change, and marine ecosystems. EMSO obser...

The detection and prediction of changes in coastal ecosystems require a better understanding of the complex physical, chemical and biological interactions, which involves that observations should be performed continuously. For this reason, there is an increasing demand for small, simple and cost-effective in situ sensors to analyze complex coastal...

Citizen Observatories are the technological platforms where a diverse range of tools are developed, such as web portals, smartphone apps, electronic devices, that allow the development of citizen science projects, particularly those with the principal objective of large scale participation of the people, covering large geographical areas and long p...

The KdUINO is a Do-It-Yourself buoy with low-cost radiometers that measure a parameter related to water transparency, the diffuse attenuation coefficient integrated into all the photosynthetically active radiation. In this contribution, we analyze the measurement errors of a novel low-cost multispectral radiometer that is used with the KdUINO.

The EMSODEV1 (European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-­‐column Observatory DEVelopment) is a UE project whose general objective is to set up the full implementation and operation of the EMSO distributed Research Infrastructure (RI), through the development, testing and deployment of an EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM). The EGIM module wi...

EMSO (European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory, www.emso-eu.org) is a large‐scale European Research Infrastructure I. It is a distributed infrastructure of strategically placed, deep‐sea seafloor and water column observatory nodes with the essential scientific objective of real‐time, long‐term observation of environmental pr...

Marine processes are observed with sensors from both the ground and space over large spatio-temporal scales. Citizen-based contributions can fill observational gaps and increase environmental stewardship amongst the public. For this purpose, tools and methods for citizen science need to (1) complement existing datasets; and (2) be affordable, while...

Phytoplankton blooms are events of production and accumulation of phytoplankton biomass that influence ecosystem dynamics and may also have effects on socio-economic activities. Among the biological factors that affect bloom dynamics, prey selection by zooplankton may play an important role. Here we consider the initial state of development of an a...

The EMSODEV (European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory DEVelopment) is an EU project whose general objective is to set up the full implementation and operation of the EMSO distributed Research Infrastructure (RI), through the development, testing and deployment of an EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM). This research infras...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In its overall strategy, COMMON SENSE work packages (11) can be grouped into 3 key phases: (1) RD basis for cost-effective sensor development, (2) Sensor development, sensor web platform and integration, and (3) Field testing. In the Phase 1, within WP1 and WP2, partners have provided a general understanding and integrated basis f...

The scattering properties of aquatic suspended particles have many optical applications. Several data inversion methods have been proposed to estimate important features of particles, such as their size distribution or their refractive index. Most of the proposed methods are based on the Lorenz–Mie theory to solve Maxwell's equations, where particl...

max 300 words) Following the spread of several infectious diseases, such as dengue, chikungunya and zika, concern is being expressed over the emergence of vector-borne viruses in new geographic locations. One of the vectors that has received particular attention in the last years is the mosquito. The Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) and the...

Currently, many water quality variables can be automatically monitored at subdaily frequencies, but most environmental datasets still rely heavily on comparatively low-frequency (e.g., monthly) sampling campaigns. Taking advantage of the long-term ecological data available from polymictic Lake Müggelsee (Germany) at weekly temporal scales, we teste...

The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO) European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) provides power, communications, sensors, and data infrastructure for continuous, high-resolution, (near-)real-time, interactive ocean observations across a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary range of research areas inc...

A critical parameter to assess the environmental status of water bodies is the transparency of the water, as it is strongly affected by different water quality related components (such as the presence of phytoplankton, organic matter and sediment concentrations). One parameter to assess the water transparency is the diffuse attenuation coefficient....

Output of an eddy-resolving numerical experiment (1/12-degree resolution), forced with NCEP Reanalysis products from 1970 to 2010, is used to study the variations of the Agulhas System and their impact on the Atlantic Ocean. The focus is on the western boundary of the tropical region. The simulation represents well the mean large scale circulation...

In recent years the promotion of marine observations based on volunteer participation, known as Citizen Science, has provided environmental data with unprecedented resolution and coverage. The Citizen Science based approach has the additional advantage to engage people by raising awareness and knowledge of marine environmental problems. The technol...