An IIASA-led paper published with collaborators and stakeholders from the Ghana Statistical Service, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), SDSN TReNDS, and other partners has received the Outstanding Article Award in the journal Sustainability Science's Best Paper Awards for 2023.
Marine plastic litter poses a global threat to marine ecosystems, wildlife, human health, and economies reliant on industries such as tourism and fishing. Working with IIASA researchers, Ghana has pioneered the use of citizen science to tackle plastic pollution in marine environments, becoming the first nation to incorporate this type of data on marine plastic litter into its official statistics and reporting systems for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The study titled, The contributions of citizen science to SDG monitoring and reporting on marine plastics, which was nominated from among 157 articles for Sustainability Science's Outstanding Article Award, highlights Ghana's innovative citizen science journey and provides a model that other countries could potentially follow. Specifically, the work shows how Ghana successfully leveraged citizen science data to fill national data gaps on marine litter, with the results being used in Ghana's 2022 Voluntary National Review of the SDGs. The study further emphasizes that citizen science not only informs policy and action, but also connects the public with science, thereby promoting a democratic approach to policymaking.
"We are thrilled that our work has been acknowledged with this award. This is a great recognition of our contribution to the field. I am grateful for the contributions of all my colleagues who made this research and the paper possible. We are dedicated to continuing our work on citizen science to tackle the sustainability challenges of our time," says study lead author, Dilek Fraisl, a researcher in the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group of the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program.
The IIASA team worked closely with coauthors and stakeholders from Ghana including the Ghana Statistical Service, the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency, Smart Nature Freak Youth Volunteers Foundation, and UNEP. The team also gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the Ghanaian Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovations, the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, the Ministry of Planning, and the National Development Planning Commission, among others.
The success of the study was previously highlighted in a World Bank blog and published as a Q&A piece in the journal Nature Sustainability.
