Want to contribute to the European Union’s climate neutrality target but not sure how? Join the latest Picture Pile campaign as part of IIASA’s LAMASUS project. Help us to identify livestock and grassland management practices from photographs, which will be used to validate a new geodatabase on land use management.
When? Now until the end of the summer 2025
Where? Via your browser or using the Picture Pile mobile app
Background
Since 2022, IIASA has been leading the Horizon Europe funded LAMASUS project (Land Management for Sustainability). This project brings together 17 partners from 8 European countries, all working towards a shared goal: developing a new governance model to improve land use practices across Europe. One key result will be an open-access modeling toolbox, designed to help policymakers evaluate the economic and environmental benefits of different policies.
One of the main outputs of the project is a high-resolution geodatabase on land use management, which will be used to determine the environmental and socio-economic impacts of land use policies in the European Union. The development of the geodatabase has been led by the NODES research group at IIASA in collaboration with colleagues in the BNR program, which leads the LAMASUS project. More information about the geodatabase can be found here.
Why and how to contribute?
One of the key challenges with the geodatabase is that it needs validation. We have thousands of images of European landscapes that require classification by citizen scientists and volunteers. Your contributions will play a key role in helping us to validate the geodatabase and provide valuable insights into how grasslands are being utilized across Europe.
Using Picture Pile is easy. You can access it through a browser or download the app on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device.
© NODES
Simply choose the Livestock or the Grassland Management pile and sort the photographs by livestock type or whether you see evidence of mowing or grazing. Slide the photograph in the direction of the answer or slide downwards if you are unsure. You can also check your score at any time on the Picture Pile leaderboard. The instructions provide examples to help you, in particular, how to identify signs of grazing and mowing. You can access these instructions at any time or send us any picture with your queries using the email listed in the app. Join in today and contribute to helping us improve our knowledge on land use management.
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