Citizen science on speed? Realising the triple objective of scientific rigour, policy influence and deep citizen engagement in a large-scale citizen science project on ambient air quality in Antwerp

Abstract

Citizen science projects are increasingly recognised as catalyst for triggering behaviour change and building social capital around environmental issues. However, overview studies observe recurrent challenges in many citizen science projects in terms of combining high levels of data quality with deep citizen engagement and policy influence. This paper reports on the findings of the CurieuzeNeuzen project (www.CurieuzeNeuzen.eu), a large-scale citizen science project on air quality in Antwerp, delivering results in the three areas described above. Through CurieuzeNeuzen, 2,000 citizens studied the air quality levels in and around Antwerp in 2016 and were intensively deliberating on possible causes and solutions. Surveys were conducted at the start and towards the end of the project, with participants stating that their participation resulted in changed views and behaviour towards air pollution, mobility solutions, and city planning. The findings were picked-up academically and contributed to policy debates on air quality at city and regional level.

Keywords:

• Citizen science
• air quality
• environmental democracy
• behavioural change
• Antwerp

Acknowledgements

The CurieuzeNeuzen project was originated from the Ringland Academy and was financially supported by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, City of Antwerp, University of Antwerp, the Research Institute for Work and Society (HIVA) of KU Leuven, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Ringland, and through crowd funding by the participants. The project also benefited from experts and academics from Belgian and foreign research institutes who shared their expertise voluntarily. Finally, thanks to all the enthusiastic citizen scientists that made this project worth publishing about.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207179.2018.1428362.

Notes

1. Legal population in Antwerp as of 1 January 2016 (http://statbel.fgov.be/).

2. The type of Palmes diffusion tubes that were used in the CurieuzeNeuzen project, were tested by the Flanders Environment Agency in earlier research and gave reliable results.

3. From these, another 2% of the sets were disqualified by the laboratory doing the quality control and analysis.

4. However, the CurieuzeNeuzen project specifically addressed road traffic and therefore used the NO₂ pollutant as indicator. For measuring direct aircraft-related emissions and impacts on ambient air pollution in the surroundings, other pollutants are more appropriate and indirect airport activity-related pollution should also be taken into account (Masiol and Harrison 2014)

5. This total number is re-constructed from the answers provided by a representative sample of CurieuzeNeuzen participants to a range of questions about the number of people (separate questions for family, friends, neighbours, etc.) they had talked to about CurieuzeNeuzen.