In April 2025, ALFAwetlands actively participated in the City Nature Challenge (CNC), engaging citizens of different European countries in documenting wetland biodiversity and raising awareness about wetlands value. Building upon the success of the 2024 initiative, the 2025 ALFAwetlands CNC expanded to include new Living Lab sites in Rampillon, France, and Tarragona, Spain, alongside the existing Austrian-Hungarian Living Lab. This was a valuable experience for future research, as well as for future bioblitz campaigns and citizens engagement events.
Global event results
As we were informed by the INaturalist team, this year for the first time 102,945 people across the globe joined the activity and made:
- 3,310,131 observations of
- more than 73,765 different species all around the world
- with help from 23,196 identifiers!
- There were more than 3 million observations during the challenge — compared to 2.4 million last year!
- In just one day, 1 million observations were uploaded to iNaturalist (it took nearly 7 years to reach that number when iNaturalist first started!)
- More than 50,000 species were recorded in a single day — about 1 in every 40 known species on Earth!
CNC team has collected some of the coolest observations and shared them through the poster. Check it also yourself here.
ALFAwetlands citizen engagement activity
ALFAwetlands events participants utilized the iNaturalist platform to record observations, contributing valuable data on species. Among them: Greylag Goose, Common Reed, and Western Marsh Harrier. These citizen-contributed observations enriched the project’s biodiversity datasets, aiding in the assessment of wetland health and informing restoration strategies. The initiative fostered increased public awareness and appreciation of wetland ecosystems, highlighting their importance in biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Feedback from participants indicated a heightened sense of community involvement and stewardship towards local natural habitats. The success of the 2025 CNC underscored the effectiveness of citizen science in complementing formal research efforts.
CNC at Austrian-Hungarian Living Lab
Despite the rainy and windy weather data collection at Austrian-Hungarian Living Lab was supported by the various excursions, led by experts and supported by Nation park rangers. Among those excursions were:
- Plant diversity along the wayside
- Birdlife at the water’s edge
- Biodiversity in focus
- Morning voices of the national park
- Insects and arachnids
- Underwater world.
It was also a possibility to learn more and join CNC through the National Park visitor Center, as well as collaborate with other interested projects and initiatives.
We have joint this activity for the first time. And would like to know more ourselves and share more about local biodiversity, especially about birds, with our guests. Great, that there is such platform as Inaturalist exist!
local tourism sector representative
Living Lab Open Day in Spain
ALFAwetlands partners from Spain decide to combine Living Lab Open Day with the CNC and invited the high school students as well as NGOs, active in the area. Also, University of Barcelona scientific team joint the CNC!
In the Open Day more than 100 high school students and citizens took part. They got an information about ALFAwetlands and its research, wetlands restoration and CNC. Furthermore, there were 5 stands organised in the area to explain:
- The restorations effort in the area
- GHG emissions from the coastal lagoons in the context of the ALFAwetlands project
- Biodiversity in the area
- Bird nesting period
- Ecosystem services from the area.
The stands were organised in a collaboration between ALFAwetlands scientists and Bachelor students of the University of Barcelona in the context of the subject “Environmental Education”.
In addition, three Open Labs of sister project REWET: Marchegg (Austria), Lanca di Gussola (Italy) and Alpiarça (Portugal) also join the activity for the first time. The REWET project focuses on wetland restoration and the promotion of biodiversity in the region. Funded by the European Union, the REWET project aims to raise awareness about the importance of preserving natural habitats and involves local communities in environmental conservation efforts.
Prior to the event ALFAwetlands organised experience exchange meeting with the REWET representatives.
Conclusions
Data collected during the activity are being integrated into ALFAwetlands’ ongoing research efforts. The collaborative model demonstrated by the citizen engagement activity serves as a blueprint for future citizen engagement in environmental monitoring. ALFAwetlands remains committed to empowering communities in the stewardship of Europe’s vital wetland ecosystems and to the further wetland diverse research.
This post was prepared by Vlado Vancura, European Wilderness Society expert.