A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Scaling up Nature Conservation: A Field Study With Crowdsourcing Invasive Species Detection and Removal
Authors: Laato, Samuli; Kordyaka, Bastian; Yoshida, Hironori; Nummenmaa, Timo
Editors: Achilleos, Achilleas; Forti, Stefano; Papadopoulos, George Angelos; Pappas, Ilias
Conference name: IFIP Conference on e-Business, eServices, and e-Society
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Publication year: 2025
Journal: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Book title : Pervasive Digital Services for People’s Well-Being, Inclusion and Sustainable Development : 24th IFIP WG 6.11 Conference on e-Business, e-Services and e-Society, I3E 2025, Limassol, Cyprus, September 9–11, 2025, Proceedings
Volume: 16079
First page : 332
Last page: 346
ISBN: 978-3-032-06163-8
eISBN: 978-3-032-06164-5
ISSN: 0302-9743
eISSN: 1611-3349
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-06164-5_24
Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: No Open Access
Publication channel's open availability : No Open Access publication channel
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-06164-5_24
Cities and municipalities often rely on contractors for upkeeping infrastructure and public spaces. In this paper, we investigate a novel crowdsourcing approach as an alternative. As a case study, we look at invasive plant detection and removal from public spaces with an app called Crowdsorsa, a gamified location-based crowdsourcing platform. Through a field study in northern Europe, we demonstrate that Crowdsorsa reaches multiple critically important goals: (1) it is a cost-effective solution for cities to handle certain maintenance tasks; (2) it provides citizens an opportunity to gain work experience; (3) it provides workers a low-threshold way to earn additional income; (4) it engages citizens to care for public spaces; and (5) it teaches workers about the environment they live in; among others. With these promising findings, we encourage more research into the use of crowdsourcing for increasingly many tasks in cities and municipalities. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Funding information in the publication:
This work was supported by the Research Council of Finland’s Flagship Programme UNITE (decision 357907) and the Research Council of Finland-funded GamiLiDAR project (decision 359472).
