IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0158329.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crowdsourcing: It Matters Who the Crowd Are. The Impacts of between Group Variations in Recording Land Cover

Author

Listed:
  • Alexis Comber
  • Peter Mooney
  • Ross S Purves
  • Duccio Rocchini
  • Ariane Walz

Abstract

Volunteered geographical information (VGI) and citizen science have become important sources data for much scientific research. In the domain of land cover, crowdsourcing can provide a high temporal resolution data to support different analyses of landscape processes. However, the scientists may have little control over what gets recorded by the crowd, providing a potential source of error and uncertainty. This study compared analyses of crowdsourced land cover data that were contributed by different groups, based on nationality (labelled Gondor and Non-Gondor) and on domain experience (labelled Expert and Non-Expert). The analyses used a geographically weighted model to generate maps of land cover and compared the maps generated by the different groups. The results highlight the differences between the maps how specific land cover classes were under- and over-estimated. As crowdsourced data and citizen science are increasingly used to replace data collected under the designed experiment, this paper highlights the importance of considering between group variations and their impacts on the results of analyses. Critically, differences in the way that landscape features are conceptualised by different groups of contributors need to be considered when using crowdsourced data in formal scientific analyses. The discussion considers the potential for variation in crowdsourced data, the relativist nature of land cover and suggests a number of areas for future research. The key finding is that the veracity of citizen science data is not the critical issue per se. Rather, it is important to consider the impacts of differences in the semantics, affordances and functions associated with landscape features held by different groups of crowdsourced data contributors.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexis Comber & Peter Mooney & Ross S Purves & Duccio Rocchini & Ariane Walz, 2016. "Crowdsourcing: It Matters Who the Crowd Are. The Impacts of between Group Variations in Recording Land Cover," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-19, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0158329
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0158329
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0158329
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0158329&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0158329?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Robbins, 2001. "Fixed Categories in a Portable Landscape: The Causes and Consequences of Land-Cover Categorization," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(1), pages 161-179, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Allington, Ginger R.H. & Fernández-Giménez, María E. & Reid, Robin & Ulambayar, Tungalag & Angerer, Jay & Jamsranjav, Chantsallkham & Baival, Batkhishig & Batjav, Batbuyan, 2024. "Context matters: Rethinking resource governance theories for Mongolian pastoral systems," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    2. Baka, Jennifer & Bailis, Robert, 2014. "Wasteland energy-scapes: A comparative energy flow analysis of India's biofuel and biomass economies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 8-17.
    3. Eric Nost, 2015. "Performing nature's value: software and the making of Oregon's ecosystem services markets," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(12), pages 2573-2590, December.
    4. Amit John Kurien & Sharachchandra Lele & Harini Nagendra, 2019. "Farms or Forests? Understanding and Mapping Shifting Cultivation Using the Case Study of West Garo Hills, India," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-26, August.
    5. Elisabeth Sedano, 2016. "‘Sensor’ship and Spatial Data Quality," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(2), pages 75-87.
    6. Chhotray, Vasudha, 2022. "A supercyclone, landscapes of ‘emptiness’ and shrimp aquaculture: The lesser-known trajectories of disaster recovery in coastal Odisha, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    7. Flurina M. Wartmann & Ross S. Purves, 2017. "What’s (Not) on the Map: Landscape Features from Participatory Sketch Mapping Differ from Local Categories Used in Language," Land, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-16, November.
    8. Melissa Leach, 2008. "Pathways to Sustainability in the Forest? Misunderstood Dynamics and the Negotiation of Knowledge, Power, and Policy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(8), pages 1783-1795, August.
    9. Adam Jadhav & Sharolyn Anderson & Michael J. B. Dyer & Paul C. Sutton, 2017. "Revisiting Ecosystem Services: Assessment and Valuation as Starting Points for Environmental Politics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-20, September.
    10. Gregory L Simon, 2010. "Mobilizing Cookstoves for Development: A Dual Adoption Framework Analysis of Collaborative Technology Innovations in Western India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(8), pages 2011-2030, August.
    11. Mattias Qviström, 2013. "Landscapes with a Heartbeat: Tracing a Portable Landscape for Jogging in Sweden (1958–1971)," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(2), pages 312-328, February.
    12. Wil Zonneveld, 2005. "Multiple Visioning: New Ways of Constructing Transnational Spatial Visions," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 23(1), pages 41-62, February.
    13. Elisabeth Sedano, 2016. "‘Sensor’ship and Spatial Data Quality," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 1(2), pages 75-87.
    14. Alexis Comber & Peter Fisher & Richard Wadsworth, 2005. "What is Land Cover?," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 32(2), pages 199-209, April.
    15. Cheyns, Emmanuelle & Silva-Castañeda, Laura & Aubert, Pierre-Marie, 2020. "Missing the forest for the data? Conflicting valuations of the forest and cultivable lands," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0158329. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.