CrowdICE : a citizen science revolution for river ice and ice-related flood monitoring

Citizen Science revolution in cold climate hydrology aims to improve river ice monitoring in northern locations. Smartphone applications offer a means to monitor and analyse river ice conditions effectively and relatively inexpensively. The main goals were understanding what can be achieved with smartphone monitoring, assessing the extent of meaningful contribution of technologies and estimating the prospects of the use of mobile applications in hydrological monitoring. Thesis literature review focuses on river ice processes and its monitoring as well as applications of Citizen Science in hydrological monitoring. The smartphone application was developed and improvements to the application were made through an investigation of its functionality and success. Data collection for the application was carried out by a participatory approach with local community near Kiiminkijoki, as well as regional authorities and experts.

CrowdICE project was at distributed intelligence citizen science level. The total amount of observations collected was 87 observations and 221 photos. The most involved age groups were 51-60 and >70, profession retired, and gender male. Variation in answers regarding river ice cover duration now and in history was noticed. Ice-related flood effects were less significant nowadays than previously. Decrease in ice cover and small increase in damage was also foreseen. Most citizen observations correlated with in-situ cameras. Application improvements should be made to increase reachability, improve user experience and engagement. More live cameras are suggested. Future work should focus on integrated system approach, increasing the scope of citizen science and evaluating need for connections to other fields.