Participatory Risk Management in the Smart City

Abstract

Citizen observations can strengthen regional and national risk management systems enabling geohazard risk prevention. Implementation of innovative ways following User-Centered Design (UCD) and User-Driven Development (UDD) concepts for gathering information about a geohazard via applications running on citizens' portable devices are still a novel area in citizen science. Enabling citizens to help observe and be engaged with their environment opens the opportunity to collect low-cost and considerable amounts of data in a brief amount of time. AGEO (Platform for Atlantic Geohazard Risk Management) aims to collaborate with local communities and local government authorities to encourage active participation in risk preparedness and monitoring. This paper presents the AGEO platform and mobile Citizen Observatory application. Our initial experiences and the early results of a usability evaluation survey on collecting data for eight types of hazards are presented. This will inform the formulation of recommendations for creating future citizen observatories in the disaster management domain.