Invasive Species App
Name of the initiative: Report Invasive Plants
URL: https://apps.apple.com/i…
Organisation form: Informal Organisation
Country: Ireland
Domain: Environmental data, shared data
Starting year: 2016
Keywords: citizen science, invasive plants
Invasive species of plants are a huge environmental problem facing many places around the world. Some plants like Japanese Knotweed can damage built infrastructure and suppress native flora and fauna.
A mobile application titled ‘Report Invasive Plants’ was developed by Limerick City and County Council in collaboration with Mobanode to address the issue by informing citizens and facilitating easy reporting of this phenomenon. The Irish forestry body—Coillte—, together with farmers, community groups, local development companies and fishery experts were consulted in the creation of the app. The resulting platform allows users to take and upload a photograph with embedded GPS coordinates of the location, and report it as an invasive species. An expert has to confirm that the plant is an invasive species before this appear on the app’s map, with the locations available as an open data set on the Insight Limerick service, as well as being added to a central national biodiversity database.
Contributed by: Gabriela Avram, University of Limerick, Ireland
Date added: 30 June 2020
