Crowdsourcing platform lets residents weigh in on issues related to climate change

Two professors at the University of South Florida’s St. Petersburg campus have launched an interactive crowdsourcing platform that allows citizens across St. Petersburg to track and monitor the impacts of climate change in their neighborhoods.

The platform, called the Community Resiliency Information System (CRIS), is part of USF’s Initiative on Coastal Adaptation and Resilience (iCAR), which was developed in 2015 with the goal of identifying climate vulnerabilities in the local community. In February, CRIS received a $50,000 grant through AT&T’s Climate Resiliency Community Challenge, which was launched to address resilience in the face of extreme weather and climate change. USF’s St. Petersburg campus was one of five institutions in the southeastern United States to receive the grant.

The platform is touted as a way to “make smart cities smarter.” CRIS uses public engagement and crowdsourced data to learn more about the local consequences of climate change. Residents can log onto CRIS and answer surveys about their experiences with hurricanes, flooding and power outages, and that information can then be shared with local leaders and emergency managers. They can also use the platform to learn more about how to prepare for a disaster.

“Our goal with CRIS is to gather information and intelligence from the people,” Barnali Dixon, executive director of iCAR and professor of geographic information systems and remote sensing, said in a statement. “Residents know more about their own neighborhood than anyone else. Using CRIS, we can harvest information to build a system that offers two-way communication between community members and policymakers. That way, policymakers are not just handing out policies – they’re able to cultivate information and resources from the community they intend to benefit.”

Dixon, along with professor Rebecca Johns and the rest of the iCAR team, will continue collecting and analyzing data through a free virtual workshop Nov. 12 and 13. The workshop will explore how technology can be used to address issues related to climate change, particularly surrounding equity issues in resiliency planning. After the event, researchers will present their recommendations to city officials. 

“Technology is a tool that can help us identify, investigate, communicate and find solutions for climate related problems while fostering resilience,” said Johns. “The power and role of technology became even more obvious during the pandemic, but socioeconomic marginalization can distance some communities from the benefits of technological tools and solutions being developed to increase resiliency.”

The issue of climate change is one that’s received a lot of emphasis in St. Pete. In January 2019, the city was selected to participate in the American Cities Climate Challenge, the Bloomberg Philanthropies-backed initiative to tackle climate change and promote a sustainable future. The designation earned the city $2.5 million in resources aimed at fighting climate change. The challenge, which continues through 2020, includes actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions community-wide by 20 percent and the establishment of two solar co-ops.