The 2017 Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia to RiuNeT app

The Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia honoured innovative environmental projects on citizen science.
The Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia honoured innovative environmental projects on citizen science.
Institutional
(07/06/2017)

RiuNeT, an app to evaluate the ecological status with the peopleʼs collaboration, conducted by the Research Group Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM), led by Professor Narcís Prat, from the Faculty of Biology, has been honoured with the Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia in the category of best initiative.

The Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia honoured innovative environmental projects on citizen science.
The Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia honoured innovative environmental projects on citizen science.
Institutional
07/06/2017

RiuNeT, an app to evaluate the ecological status with the peopleʼs collaboration, conducted by the Research Group Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM), led by Professor Narcís Prat, from the Faculty of Biology, has been honoured with the Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia in the category of best initiative.

The awards for innovative environmental projects on citizen science, were given on Tuesday, June 6, in a ceremony with the participation of the Minister of Territory and Sustainability, Josep Rull, and the Secretary for Environment and Sustainability, Marta Subirà, on the occasion of the World Environment Day. This year, the Environment Prize of the Government of Catalonia honoured the task of four research groups, two associations and the environmental consultant Francesc Giró.


RiuNeT: an app to discover the status of rivers


Using a phone with camera, internet connection and a geographic positioning system, the app RiuNeT can assess the ecological quality of a river trace following the guidelines of the Water Framework Directive. The final objective is for the observer to collect these indicators and send the results to the researchers. Once they are analysed, they will be available to all water managers and other people who are interested in it. Thus, the jury gave this award “for having brought people closer to rivers and involve them in the assessment of their ecological state, with scientific rigour and expertsʼ tutoring, but in a dynamic and simple way, with a phone app that guides the participant through a protocol of environmental diagnosis to determine the health status of a river”.


RiuNeT is integrated in the research lines of the Citizen Science Office, an initiative launched by the Direction of Creativity and Innovation of the Culture Institute of Barcelona (ICUB) in which several research groups look for citizen participation in scientific research with collective experiments, according to the Horizon 2020 guidelines. The app RiuNeT has been developed with the collaboration of the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit (UCC+i) of the Communication Area of the UB and the funding of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) - Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. The company Fusta has been in charge of the creation of this app. It has also received a financial aid from RecerCaixa to finance the server and necessary maintenance to receive and manage data sent by the users.


Download the app RiuNeT.


Promotional video


RiuNeT website