COSEA: a shared citizen science app to turn marine observations into useful data –
Monitoring the ocean requires data, but also people, local knowledge and tools that make observations easy to collect and share. COSEA is being developed to bring these elements together in one accessible citizen science platform.
The app enables citizens, researchers, conservation groups and local communities to record and share observations from marine and coastal environments. These can range from species and habitats to pollution, human impacts, water conditions and other changes observed at sea or along the coast.
The goal is practical: make it easier to gather information from places and communities that conventional monitoring programmes may not always reach, while creating a structured flow of observations that can contribute to research, conservation and a better understanding of how marine ecosystems are changing.
At the same time, COSEA addresses another challenge facing citizen science: technology. Developing and maintaining a dedicated app requires funding, technical expertise and long term resources that many small projects and local organisations simply do not have.
Instead of asking every initiative to build its own digital infrastructure, COSEA offers a platform that different projects can share and adapt to their needs.
One platform, more opportunities for marine projects
This shared approach could significantly lower the barrier to participation in digital citizen science.
A local conservation group, a regional monitoring initiative or a small research project could use COSEA to involve citizens and organise observations without having to develop an application from scratch. In turn, bringing different initiatives onto a common platform can help expand the geographical reach of observations and connect local knowledge with a wider marine science community.
The benefits are not limited to data collection. Citizen science can strengthen public engagement with the ocean by giving people an active role in observing their environment. For projects and organisations, it can provide a way to build communities around monitoring and conservation activities. For science, wider participation can increase the volume and geographical coverage of observations, provided that data collection follows appropriate methods and quality standards.
This combination of technology, participation and shared infrastructure is at the heart of COSEA.
An app designed to be built collaboratively
COSEA is currently in its first prototype phase and is opening its development process to other organisations and initiatives.
The project is led by SPOTTERON, which develops digital infrastructure for citizen science. Rather than creating a closed application for a single project, COSEA is intended as a collaborative environment where scientific initiatives, organisations, regional groups and ocean activists can use a common toolkit and contribute to shaping how the platform evolves.
This is why the current co-creation call is particularly aimed at independent and smaller initiatives that have ideas, expertise or active communities but lack the resources to develop and operate their own interactive, privacy-safe citizen science apps.
Participating groups can therefore bring their own needs and experience into the development process. The objective is to make COSEA useful across different geographical areas and types of marine activity rather than designing the technology around a single use case.
From European research to the UN Ocean Decade
COSEA runs on the SPOTTERON Citizen Science App Platform and emerged from two Horizon Europe initiatives, EFFECTIVE and TRANSEATION, which work on solutions for the protection and restoration of marine and coastal ecosystems.
COSEA has also been endorsed as an Action of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030, known as the Ocean Decade. The Decade is coordinated by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.
This connection places COSEA within a broader international effort to improve knowledge of the ocean and, crucially, make that knowledge more useful and accessible to society.
According to the Ocean Decade, COSEA contributes to three of its global challenges: expanding ocean observations, developing a digital representation of the ocean and encouraging changes in people’s relationship with marine environments.
Its potential therefore goes beyond providing another tool for reporting what people see at sea. By connecting observations, communities and projects through shared infrastructure, COSEA could help widen participation in ocean science and give smaller initiatives a stronger role in producing knowledge about marine and coastal ecosystems.
COSEA is looking for projects to join the platform
With the app still under development, COSEA is now inviting independent initiatives, scientific projects, organisations and regional groups to take part in its co-creation process.
No closing date has been announced for the current call. Interested groups can contact the COSEA team at baiba@spotteron.net or submit their interest through the dedicated form (https://ow.ly/47ny50ZHmjH).
For organisations that already work with coastal communities, marine observations or environmental monitoring, the opportunity is twofold: access a digital citizen science infrastructure without having to build it independently, and contribute directly to the development of a platform designed to connect local action with a broader ocean science network.
COSEA: a shared citizen science app to turn marine observations into useful data
