The Protected Areas of the Cozie Alps project on iNaturalist

In 2016, the entity created and developed its own citizen science project called "Protected Areas of the Cozie Alps" within the platform of Stanford University and the California Academy of Sciences "iNaturalist".

According to the definition by the authors, iNaturalist is “a social network of people who share information about biodiversity online to help each other understand nature.” It is a completely free online platform that anyone can join and is achieving tremendous success: in 2021, there were 29,262,242 observations globally (6,233,165 more than in 2020) related to 232,084 species, submitted by 4,850,678 registered users.

It is possible to upload photographs, sounds, and descriptions of all living forms and georeference them on a WEBGIS.

All data is owned by the author (the person who submitted the data), who can share it at different levels on specific projects.

The entered data can be classified by the entire community of platform registrants, which includes enthusiasts, specialists, and university professors: in this way, it is possible to achieve a high degree of identification of the recorded observations, especially if the data is supported by a photograph.

The geographic area over which the project “Protected Areas of the Cozie Alps” extends is 4,221 square kilometers and encompasses all the ZSC and ZPS managed by the entity, covering territories from the Susa Valley to the Pellice Valley. All the naturalistic data collected in this area by members of the iNaturalist platform can be shared in the entity's project and used for institutional purposes.

The processing of data collected in the Protected Areas of the Cozie Alps project allows for the extraction and analysis of species of particular naturalistic and conservation interest, such as those identified by the Habitat Directive 92/43/EEC.

Thanks to the continuous contributions of observations to the project, it is thus possible to create thematic maps of significant management and scientific value, allowing the entity to constantly enhance its knowledge about the natural heritage it is required to manage.
 

Contact people

Maurino Luca - Officer in the Conservation and Biodiversity Management Area - maurino@alpicozie.eu

Collaborations

As of December 31, 2022, there are 2570 project collaborators who enable an increasingly detailed validation of observations.