OR/15/032 A road map for future research

Mee K, Duncan M J. 2015. Increasing resilience to natural hazards through crowd-sourcing in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. British Geological Survey Internal Report, OR/15/32.

Crowd-sourcing and citizen science can be powerful approaches, for real-time data collection to provide information to scientists and emergency managers and for signposting citizens to appropriate information and advice on how to reduce their risk. However, they are also not without their challenges including possible low uptake, the timeliness of validation and reliance on internet, mobile networks and technology. Problem-definition, co-production and subsequent research design with in-country partners helps to address such challenges. The emphasis on long-term relationship-building with citizens also mitigates some challenges.

In this report, we have particularly explored the possible role of crowdsourcing in the context of anticipating hazards, engagement and partnership and informing decision-making in SVG. We have presented evidence that our application designed initially for the UK has global applicability for both long-term and short-term hazard benefits. The app provides three key areas of real-time functionality (cf. Global Pulse, 2013): early warning (e.g. making civil authorities and monitoring institutions aware of long-term and rapid environmental change); real-time awareness (e.g. environmental reality, concerns and needs visible in real-time, impacts) and real-time feedback (e.g. more efficient and targeted official responses, as well as quelling rumours).

Over the longer term, our approach demonstrates that, in SVG and other regions, myVolcano can support five key processes of building resilience:

1. Collaboration: Linking people, data and initiatives
   The app can point people to different data sources and social media. It supports interaction between citizens, scientists and emergency managers.
2. Decision making: Supporting the role of monitoring institutions, civil protection and communities in anticipating and responding to natural hazards
   The app can support individuals, communities and authorities through increased awareness and knowledge to enhance decision-making.
3. Anticipation: Supporting monitoring of volcanoes and their multi-hazard environments
   Under-monitoring of volcanoes exists worldwide (especially in the Lesser Antilles, Africa, SE Asia). Community monitoring can provide useful data and has many benefits to communities, scientists and authorities.
4. Capacity building of institutions and communities
   In particular, supporting the role of monitoring institutions and attempting to use technology to address resource issues.
5. Knowledge co-production: two-way exchange
   The app provides a two-way movement of data and information: the crowd submits the data, the monitoring institution uses the data for their scientific purposes and information is fed back to the crowd. In other settings, this exchange has been demonstrated to help to raise awareness of hazards and risks and consolidate engagement with and confidence in the scientists (Stone et al., 2014).

Our project not only discusses the role of crowdsourcing (our chosen ‘big data’), but also the process of taking an application designed for a particular country and applying it elsewhere. It is here that we begin to question the concept of ‘innovation’ and particularly the role we as the international scientists and researchers play in forming a truly bottom-up, in-country owned approach. The key questions that need to be incorporated in future research include: who is the innovator and how does the innovation build resilience? What is the role of science and research in enhancing capacity at the local level?

Innovation should aim to support and work within existing risk governance structures where they are effective. To ensure that the design and functionality of the app is most appropriate to SVG, we devised a user-centric methodology that addresses key questions such as: who will benefit from an app, what do they want from it, how will it be used and by whom, and does the technological and citizen science framework exist for supporting the use of an app?

Future research also needs to emphasise the importance of understanding volcanic environments through an appreciation that volcanoes produce multiple hazards, exist within multi-hazardous settings (many in the tropics) and that citizen science is about observing environmental change — a holistic approach to monitoring, anticipating and analysing hazards and risk. This approach and the four areas of building resilience listed above require an interdisciplinary approach.