Tessa Gough
The role of Citizen Science Big Data for flood management.
- Email: t.gough2@ncl.ac.uk
Project title
Bringing the crowd to the cloud: the role of Citizen Science Big Data for flood management
Supervisors
- School of Engineering
- UK Met Office
- Katherine O’Boyle
Project description
The Natural Environment Resources Council (NERC) funds this research as part of the Data, Risk and Environmental Analytical Methods (DREAM) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) program. Newcastle University is a consortium partner. The Data Assimilation for the REsilient City (DARE) Consortium provides co-funding. The UK Met Office is a research partner.
The Met Office’s Weather Observations Online (WOW) website provides a platform for weather observations generated by Citizen Science. The Met Office has collected observations via WOW since 2011. The number of contributors is increasing year on year, yet the data is not routinely used.
The data is largely not quality controlled. Thus, there is a degree of scepticism about its usefulness, but there is interest in it as a resource.
In this research, we will assess the quality of rainfall observations on the WOW platform. We will look at potential applications, particularly when used in conjunction with other environmental data.
We will research the role of Citizen Science, to consider the potential barriers and benefits to communities involved in gathering data.