SENTINEL

Start with a photo and become an environmental Sentinel to protect Biodiversity

Sentinel is the APP of the project "SEStante - Ecosystem development of urban green through the Citizen science", financed by the European Union call "There is not a PLANet B! Win-win strategies and small actions for big impacts on climate change ". Exactly like the useful tool to know the angle with respect to your position, the sextant, the project promotes the knowledge of the environment that surrounds us to increase the awareness of citizens on the value of urban green, with a view to mitigating the impacts of current climate change on our lives.

With a Citizen Science approach, as indicated in the European Union strategies for the defense of biodiversity, citizens are being asked to build a community of citizen scientists involved in the management of environmental criticalities of urban territories through environmental monitoring campaigns. With the Sentinel App, any citizen can become an "environmental sentinel" by participating in the observation and monitoring activities that you will find in the "CAMPAIGNS" section.

You start with a photo and then with a few simple steps you can send your data that, after a necessary validation of the experts, will enter a data base accessible to all from the on-line site of Istituto Ecoambientale (IEA), the proponent and project manager.

For each data sent you will receive a confirmation e-mail, and you will always be able to see in your app the list of your reports and their location on a map.

The first proposed campaign is "Look at the flower".

It is a campaign of phenological observations where we monitor the development of the flower of some target species. The development of the flower, like all other plant structures, has a significant correlation with the seasonal trend of temperatures, and therefore its development is a good indicator of any changes in the long term.

Acacia dealbata, Arbutus unedo, Cercis siliquastrum, Eriobotrya japonica, Forsythia europaea, Prunus cerasifera 'Pissardii', Prunus dulcis, Sambucus nigra, and Viburnum tinus. are the 9 plant species hosted in this campaign. Careful botanical charts and detailed photographs available in the App will allow you to know and recognize each of these plants.

To collect data on the development of their flower just follow the procedure outlined in the App, and through three simple steps, your report will start from your mobile phone to get to us.

We start, during our usual walks, to find the plant and recognize the stage of flower development.

The first step involves the selection of one of the four photos shown in the App, the one that best corresponds to the state of development of the flower of the plant we are facing, and which show in order: the completely closed flower bud; the bud is very swollen and close to open; the flower is completely open and lush; the flower completely wilted and / or devoid of petals.

We continue with the second step that consists in taking a picture of the plant in front of us.

It ends with the third step sending us the photo just made.

The second proposed campaign is "Find the intruder".

It is a matter of monitoring, by sending us the photo, the presence of invasive botanical species. From a list of target species, accompanied here also by accurate botanical cards, it will be easy to identify on its territory species such as the ailanthus or the locust, which are spreading more and more to the detriment of our plants. Their strong competitiveness is putting at risk the richness of our biodiversity, and the photos you send us will be included in a specific database, freely available from the IEA website, which can be used to follow over time the effect of climate change on the delicate situation between indigenous and alien species, even in urbanized contexts.