Biodiversity and the Smart City: How can citizen science increase co-operation

Abstract

Biodiversity has suffered huge declines in recent decades. Meanwhile, smart city initiatives have become very popular in urban settings as a way of tackling society’s problems. The purpose of this study is to look at the extent to which smart city initiatives and urban biodiversity practitioners currently co-operate, to explore factors promoting or hindering co-operation, and to identify how citizen science can synergise the two domains. The study applies an abductive approach to qualitative data produced from a case study of the city of Stavanger in Norway. It draws on document analysis and semi-structured interviews with representatives from public and private smart city actors, the municipal administration, environmental NGOs and academia. The results are discussed using the governmental inter-organisational information integration (GIII) theory of cross-sectoral integration. The research shows that smart city bodies and biodiversity practitioners have had very little contact. Although environmental issues are included in smart city initiatives, this inclusion remains largely limited to issues related to energy use and reducing greenhouse gases. Perceptions of the smart city are key determinants of the willingness to co-operate. In particular, the perception that technology is fundamental to smart city projects presents a key barrier to collaboration. Citizen science approaches have a range of applications in local biodiversity projects, and the skill sets present among smart city actors can be useful in advancing such projects.