It was a pleasure to present, on behalf of SHINE 2Europe, our collective work on the OneAquaHealth Project alongside my colleagues Ângela Freitas, Harm op den Akker, and Carina Dantas at the #OpenLab.Brussels conference “Creating Knowledge through Participatory Research” in Brussels. I was also glad to be joined on the same panel by insightful contributions from colleagues, especially my dear colleague Miriam Cabrita, who presented SHINE's multi-stakeholder approach in other projects.
#OneAquaHealth aims to support the sustainability of urban aquatic ecosystems and show the vital link between freshwater ecosystem health and human well-being in urban areas. 🌍💧 A key goal of the project is to involve citizens and stakeholders in monitoring urban streams to identify environmental indicators that can signal early risks of disease outbreaks linked to ecosystem degradation. SHINE plays a central role here, focusing on stakeholder engagement.
Our presentation, titled “Engaging Local Stakeholders and Citizens in Monitoring Urban Aquatic Ecosystems: The OneAquaHealth Research Framework,” emphasized the importance of Local Alliances in Citizen Science activities. These alliances, comprising stakeholders from government, academia, industry, environmental organizations, and civil society, are crucial for developing, implementing, and sustaining OneAquaHealth initiatives. Each alliance is tailored to the unique context of each research site - Coimbra, Oslo, Benevento, Ghent, and Toulouse.
We discussed how each research site builds #Local #Alliances, identifying and engaging stakeholders through locally tailored activities such as workshops, meetings, and urban stream tours. Additionally, we shared insights from citizen focus groups that explored perceptions of urban streams and motivations for environmental observation. These findings will be integrated into the #CitizenScienceProtocol we developed, ensuring it is adapted to each local context.
