Periodic Reporting for period 2 - I-CHANGE (Individual Change of HAbits Needed for Green European transition)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-05-01 bis 2024-04-30
With a focus on a multidisciplinary and participatory approach, this project seeks to boost citizen involvement and awareness about climate change and its consequences. It will engage in a range of activities, beginning with the collection of environmental data through citizen science efforts. The project will also provide educational and informative experiences that highlight the effects of everyday behaviors on the environment, along with conducting living labs in various cities of the partner countries. The information, tools, and applications produced throughout the project will be centralized in the I-CHANGE Environmental Impact Hub (EIH), which will share insights with citizens. Additionally, the EIH aims to work in tandem with key European initiatives for data sharing and computational frameworks. The tools will be created through a collaborative process that empowers citizens to learn about scientific methods and techniques in partnership with experts.
In the project's initial phase, it was vital to foster stakeholder engagement by bringing together key local figures, community members, and the scientific community involved in I-CHANGE. We also assessed the non-technical obstacles to citizen science initiatives and designed data collection activities for various Living Labs (LLs). Initial thoughts on ensuring the sustainability of these LLs after the project's end have also been developed. I-CHANGE has initiated a range of citizen science projects in the LLs aimed at raising awareness about climate action and encouraging citizen participation through enhanced environmental observation and understanding of both personal and collective impacts. To support this, the project has been responsible for creating numerical simulations to analyze the effects of behavioral changes on carbon and environmental footprints, estimating their potential impact on climate change mitigation and related extreme events, and establishing a distributed network of diverse sensing tools for citizen science initiatives. We have also looked into how individual participation in these activities can drive a real transition to sustainable behaviors and assessed the socio-economic effects of our interventions in the LLs.
I-CHANGE has successfully created an innovative modeling chain that estimates the effects of behavioral changes on carbon and environmental footprints, climate change mitigation, and geo-hydrological hazards. The initial segment includes a mobility-based behavioral simulation model that explores the consequences of different traffic policy scenarios and the behavioral adjustments they trigger. This was further developed by integrating calculations that assess the impacts of these behavioral changes on carbon emissions, environmental footprints, and the release of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. The final segment of the modeling chain culminates in a thorough evaluation of how these behavioral changes affect the concentrations of greenhouse gases, air pollutants, and short-lived climate forcers. Moreover, the established simulation framework has opened up opportunities for the development of original web and mobile applications that can calculate the impacts of behavioral changes and provide early warnings for natural hazards and extreme events.
The EIH serves as a key technological foundation for the innovative processes introduced by the I-CHANGE project. It leverages mobile technologies and citizen science to promote behavioral changes aimed at adapting to climate change. The deployment of the EIH holds significant potential for advancing citizen science, particularly in how observations are shared and utilized. By establishing a dedicated Citizen Observatory and an advanced broker that connects it with other relevant data sources, we can seamlessly integrate citizen science observations with external data for validation and information generation. This unified access to diverse data through a single API will empower app developers to create mobile and desktop applications that gather sensor data and provide valuable feedback to users. Additionally, the development of a dashboard will shed light on the pressing challenges posed by a changing climate, such as air pollution, indoor and outdoor heatwaves, flooding, landslides, and storms.
Taking an active and early approach to exploitation, I-CHANGE is developing key exploitable results aimed at achieving successful outcomes and promoting environmentally conscious behavior in society. I-CHANGE has established robust partnerships across Europe and beyond, linking projects with local and national authorities. We're gathering insights on behavioral changes and adaptation strategies to create a practical guide for citizens. Discussions among diverse local stakeholders have kicked off in the Forums, and the findings will be compiled into a manifesto. I-CHANGE is also looking into different methods to maximize the use of the sensor data collected throughout the project.
The EIH serves as a key technological foundation for the innovative processes introduced by the I-CHANGE project. It leverages mobile technologies and citizen science to promote behavioral changes aimed at adapting to climate change. The deployment of the EIH holds significant potential for advancing citizen science, particularly in how observations are shared and utilized. By establishing a dedicated Citizen Observatory and an advanced broker that connects it with other relevant data sources, we can seamlessly integrate citizen science observations with external data for validation and information generation. This unified access to diverse data through a single API will empower app developers to create mobile and desktop applications that gather sensor data and provide valuable feedback to users. Additionally, the development of a dashboard will shed light on the pressing challenges posed by a changing climate, such as air pollution, indoor and outdoor heatwaves, flooding, landslides, and storms.
Taking an active and early approach to exploitation, I-CHANGE is developing key exploitable results aimed at achieving successful outcomes and promoting environmentally conscious behavior in society. I-CHANGE has established robust partnerships across Europe and beyond, linking projects with local and national authorities. We're gathering insights on behavioral changes and adaptation strategies to create a practical guide for citizens. Discussions among diverse local stakeholders have kicked off in the Forums, and the findings will be compiled into a manifesto. I-CHANGE is also looking into different methods to maximize the use of the sensor data collected throughout the project.