Josch13, Pixabay Lizenz (https://bit.ly/3ACHB39)

Institution: "Naturschutzbund Österreich"

Project lead: Gernot Neuwirth

Naturschutzbund Österreich
Museumsplatz 2
5020 Salzburg

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

naturbeobachtung.at

Since 2006, a wide variety of nature observations can be reported on naturbeobachtung.at. Specially designed reporting masks for various groups of animals, plants and fungi allow detailed entries. The reporters can, as far as possible, identify their observations taxonomically or report them as "undetermined species". The latter can then be subsequently identified by the community. Optionally, more precise reports are possible, e. g. with weather data or a detailed description of the site including site photos. Uploading photos of specimens is explicitly encouraged (and mandatory in the app, which also provides mobile access to naturbeobachtung.at). The possibility to upload "picture series" of an observed individual makes it much easier for the experts to check the reports, especially for species that are difficult to identify.

Discuss with like-minded people

A special highlight of the web version is the lively discussion forum with over 240,000 text contributions from over 40,000 discussions. Here, registrants can exchange information with other nature enthusiasts, show their most beautiful nature photographs or ask experts for identification help.

Report even easier with the app!

In 2018, the web version was expanded to include a free app for smartphones with the same name. Reporting via the app is simple, straightforward and fast: images (Exif data) and GPS data "automatically" provide all relevant data that are important for reporting an observation. The reports from the web and app are synchronized and can therefore be viewed on all devices.

Android App

iOS App

What will happen with the records?

All reports are checked regularly by experts. For reports with already assigned species name, the determination is checked and evaluated as "confirmed", "plausible", "doubtful" or "wrong". If the species name has not yet been assigned, the expert "determines" the species. If the reporter was only able to assign the observation to one species group, experts have the possibility to "specify" the finding on species level. The reporters are automatically informed of the result of the data check or determination - via email in the web application, via push message in the app.

Who checks the data?

More than 60 experts from all biological disciplines provide naturbeobachtung.at with their expertise. Most of them are volunteer experts from universities, museums or technical offices. In the course of time, more and more "amateur experts" with profound knowledge of species have also been authorized to validate data on the platform. The introduction of people to scientific activities is a declared goal of this Citizen Science project!

Teaching species knowledge - with fun

In 2021, the web version and app were expanded to include two new functions especially for schoolchildren and newcomers: Firstly, competitions - searches for a small number of easily recognizable species over a certain period of time - are intended to provide a playful introduction to observing, recognizing and reporting species. Species knowledge can secondly be tested and improved in an exciting way with various species quizzes: In increasing degrees of difficulty, the task is to assign the correct species name to a photo shown.

What has happened so far

To date, almost 930,000 observations have been reported by over 17,000 contributors and more than 650,000 photos have been uploaded. The data obtained are used for further conservation measures and provide an excellent basis for current scientific work.

The most common examples for the use of observation data from naturbeobachtung.at are master and doctoral theses as well as scientific publications. However, observation data are also forwarded to various institutions: For example, data on selected animal groups in Styria were used in the compilation of the "Red Lists of Styria" in 2021, and plant observations from Salzburg were used in the biodiversity database at the Haus der Natur in 2022.

In this way, the Naturschutzbund with its Citizen Science platform naturbeobachtung.at significantly supports biodiversity research in Austria! Join us – as a nature observer or expert!

Podcast episode

If you would like to learn more, you can listen to the "Wissen macht Leute" podcast episode about the project (in German). More information can be found here.

Citizen Science Seminar

In 2021, poject coordinator Gernot Neuwirth held a lecture about naturbeobachtung.at as part of the lecture series "Citizen Science Seminar" at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU): "Factors for a successful contribution of Citizen Science to biodiversity research" (in German). At the end of this page you can watch the video recording of the lecture.