McClure, Eva, Sievers, Michael, Brown, Christopher J., Buelow, Christina A., Ditria, Ellen M., Hayes, Matthew A., Pearson, Ryan M., Tulloch, Vivitskaia J.D., Unsworth, Richard K.F., and Connolly, Rod M. (2020) Artificial Intelligence Meets Citizen Science to Supercharge Ecological Monitoring. Patterns, 1 (7). 100109.

Preview

PDF (Published Version) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Citizen science and artificial intelligence (AI) are often used in isolation for ecological monitoring, but their integration likely has emergent benefits for management and scientific inquiry. We explore the complementarity of citizen science and AI for ecological monitoring, highlighting key opportunities and challenges. We show that strategic integration of citizen science and AI can improve outcomes for conservation activities. For example, coupling the public engagement benefits of citizen science with the advanced analytical capabilities of AI can increase multi-stakeholder accord on issues of public and scientific interest. Furthermore, both techniques speed up data collection and processing compared with conventional scientific techniques, suggesting that their integration can fast-track monitoring and conservation actions. We present key project attributes that will assist project managers in prioritizing the resources needed to implement citizen science, AI, or preferably both.

Item ID:	93248
Item Type:	Article (Commentary)
ISSN:	2666-3899
Copyright Information:	© 2020 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Date Deposited:	07 Aug 2026 06:15
FoR Codes:	41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410402 Environmental assessment and monitoring @ 50% 46 INFORMATION AND COMPUTING SCIENCES > 4603 Computer vision and multimedia computation > 460306 Image processing @ 50%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1899 Other environmental management > 189999 Other environmental management not elsewhere classified @ 50% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280111 Expanding knowledge in the environmental sciences @ 50%
Downloads:	Total: 1 Last 12 Months: 1
	More Statistics