Welcome to SUTEE!
Showcasing Urban Trees for Environmental Education with
IoT Technology. SUTEE is an ERASMUS+ Strategic Cooperation Partnership in the field of school education project.
Biodiversity provides a valuable indicator for measuring the state of the natural environment in urban areas. Citizen science projects are a relatively new form of collecting data in regions that are otherwise difficult to cover. With the help of ordinary citizens (hence the name ‘citizen science’), scientists gather information about the observable environment.
One such citizen science project that collects data about wildlife in Austria is naturbeobachtung.at. This is an online platform operated by the Naturschutzbund, an independent Austrian organisation that engages in protecting nature as the basis for wellbeing of humans, flora and fauna. To enable wide participation, the platform offers a mobile app, so people can shoot photos and upload them directly on the fly. Experts then verify the uploads, and provide feedback to the contributors.
Because citizen science operates directly in the field, there are some limitations to what it can do. For example, observations of nocturnal animals are rarer, as it is more difficult to shoot recognisable photographs, where animals can be unmistakably identified. The collected data also depends on the spread and enthusiasm of participants, who might cover some spots more thoroughly than others. Nevertheless, in the aggregate, the amount of verified reports allows a good monitoring of the natural fauna.
SUTEE has been given access to the dataset and we would like to thank Naturschutzbund and naturbeobachtung.at for allowing us to use their data for Vienna and its suburbs. For the years 2022 and 2023, a total of 23,000 datapoints were collected, analysed and verified. To give you an impression what this means for the wider metropolitan area, we looked at some larger mammals and where they were recorded (fig.1 foxes; fig.2 deer).
Figure 1. Fox sightings reported at naturbeobachtung.at
Figure 2. Deer sightings reported at naturbeobachtung.at
It is the urban green spaces like forests and parklands primarily in the suburban areas, that are home to these and many other animals. However, there is increasing pressure on the habitat of all species from the city’s expansion. The largest construction activities in urban development (motorways, residential and commercial zones) have now moved to these suburban areas.
Figure 3. City expansion into suburban green fields
Figure 4. City expansion intruding into agricultural outskirts
The data from citizen science projects like naturbeobachtung.at further highlight that the loss of trees, shrubs, fields and grassland have a direct impact on the populations of wild animals of all sorts. These green lands provide shelter, food and breeding grounds for them, hence are well worth protecting to safeguard biodiversity, as well as alleviating extreme weather in urban areas. The sightings from citizen science participants, therefore, give a good indication on the state of natural lands in and around cities.
With kind support from naturbeobachtung.at an online platform by Naturschutzbund.
