The Danube Delta, Romania

A SCENT Pilot Area

Upcoming Pilot Campaigns: 4th and 5th Scent Pilot Campaigns in the Danube Delta

Dates: 24 – 26 May and 31 May – 2 June 2019

Location: Partizani Village, Tulcea

Scent is organising two pilot campaigns between the end of May and start of June 2019. Both campaigns will recruit volunteers from the local community to help test the new Scent Explore and Scent Measure apps by collecting important data about changes in land use and land cover, as well as soil conditions.

The campaigns will take place on the weekends of 24 – 26 May and 31 May – 2 June. Volunteers will meet in Partizani village, where they will board small boats to explore the tributaries of the Danube Delta. Volunteers will use Scent Explore to search for augmented reality Scent creatures hiding in areas of important environmental interest. By taking pictures of the creatures, the volunteers can compete with each other to earn points while also sending environmental information to the Scent scientists.

When playing Scent Explore, volunteers may also be prompted to take measurements of soil conditions with the Scent Measure app. Simply by sticking a portable sensor in the ground, volunteers will be able to collect information about soil temperature and moisture directly to their phones.

Results from the 2018 Danube Delta Campaigns

In 2018, Scent organised its first two pilot campaigns for the Danube Delta region. The preliminary results of these campaigns are now available.

83 volunteers from local businesses, universities and other community organisations became citizen scientists for the day and took part in the campaigns. The volunteers had fun testing the new Scent Explore gaming app in the waterways of the Danube delta.

Overall, the pilot volunteers successfully collected more than 7200 individual pieces of data, concerning river parameter measurements and land use/land cover images.

Scent will organise more campaigns in the Danube Delta during 2019. The data collected by the volunteers during all these campaigns will help to create more accurate and up to date flood maps for the region. These flood maps will help policymakers and local authorities to better understand, analyse, manage and prevent flooding in Attica.

Past Campaign: 1st Pilot Campaign in the Danube Delta, 12-18 August 2018

Every year, Scent partner SOR organises a bird-watching expedition to the Danube Delta. This year the expedition included Scent’s first citizen science pilot campaign.

As part of the campaign, more than 100 volunteers tested the new Scent Explore gaming app. The participants navigated the waterways of the Danube Delta and took photos of Scent creatures they spotted along the way, using the augmented reality feature of the Scent Explore app.

Take a look at some of the photos from the campaign below!

Past Campaign: 2nd Pilot Campaign in the Danube Delta, 27-30 September 2018

Volunteers gathered in the Danube Delta in September, to test the new Scent Explore app. While navigating the waters of the Danube, the volunteers were playing with the app – trying to capture Scent creatures hidden along the river.

By using the augmented reality function of the app, the creatures became visible to the participants at locations of special interest. The volunteers captured the creatures using Scent Explore by taking a short video of the water velocity of where they creatures appeared. Participants were also able to capture the creatures by taking photos of the water level at different points on the Danube.

Take a look at some of the photos taken by one of our volunteers, Doru Spac.

Scent and the Danube Delta

The Danube Delta is the largest wetland in Europe and is protected under UNESCO as a unique biosphere reserve. Located at the mouth of the Black Sea, its winding canals, marshes, rivers and lakes are rich in lush vegetation and wildlife, and span some 2,200 square miles.

As home to the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, it has the third largest biodiversity in the world, with more than 5,500 species of flora and fauna, and the highest concentration of bird colonies in Europe.

The Danube Delta suffers from human interventions leading to dramatic changes. These interventions include damming large areas for agricultural use and intensive forestry. They result in disturbances of the water and ecological balance and even the loss of specific habitats.

There is currently no up-to-date data available that would allow for dynamic and accurate monitoring of changes in land cover and land use in this rural environment. A large number of citizens will participate in the SCENT field tests in Danube Delta, activated by partner SOR, an NGO which is very active in the Danube Delta and has access to a large network of citizen groups through campaigns about Danube bird habitats and biodiversity.

Scent also has the active support of the Romanian governmental Danube Delta Biosphere Authority (DDBA) responsible for maintaining spatio-temporal flooding maps of the area. DDBA will attend workshops and evaluate the Scent toolbox from the policy maker viewpoint.