13 June 2015
IIASA
Schlosspark Laxenburg, Austria

FotoQuest Austria: App test day at IIASA

FotoQuest Austria is an open access online project that combines science with photography and outdoor adventure. Join IIASA researchers for our first public test run of the app, in the beautiful park behind the Institute.

©Katherine Leitzell, IIASA

©Katherine Leitzell, IIASA

Before we kick off the FotoQuest Austria Summer 2015 campaign, we invite you to help us test our mobile app, which we specially designed for this initiative, while spending time outside in the beautiful Schlosspark Laxenburg. 

At the park entrance, you will have a chance to download the FotoQuest Austria app on your mobile phone. Once you open the app and enable the GPS on your phone, you must find five locations inside the park indicated on the app. At each location, the app instructs you to take a series of pictures and answer a few questions describing the landscape.

Once you have visited all locations, you can come back to the park entrance, fill out a short feedback form, and claim a voucher for free ice cream from the local ice cream shop.

The event is taking place at the same time as the Laxenburg Spring Festival. Find more information at www.laxenburg.at

FotoQuest Austria

Every day in Austria, land is taken to build large shopping malls and parking lots, while transportation networks increasingly cut through landscapes causing environmental degradation. As urban sprawl encroaches on the Austrian countryside, fertile soil and land rich in plant and animal species begin to disappear under asphalt and concrete. The result is the marginalization of Austria’s natural landscapes including the shrinking of wetlands, which store large amounts of CO2. As wetlands become drained they release this CO2 into the environment, which has large implications for climate change. With increased urbanization we have also faced increasing instances of flooding. To safeguard the future of Austria’s beautiful and varied landscapes, it is important that we take stock of its land cover today.

FotoQuest Austria is a citizen science campaign that allows you to explore the outdoors while taking pictures and collecting observations for science using a game-like app, developed by IIASA, on your mobile device. This initiative will help IIASA researchers collect data all over Austria about land cover and land use. For more information, please visit FotoQuest.at (Information in German).




 



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Last edited: 27 August 2015

CONTACT DETAILS

Steffen Fritz

Program Director and Principal Research Scholar Strategic Initiatives Program

Principal Research Scholar Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group - Advancing Systems Analysis Program

Dahlia Domian

Program and Project Officer/Finance Coordinator Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group - Advancing Systems Analysis Program

Program and Project Officer/Finance Coordinator Advancing Systems Analysis Program

Program and Project Officer/Finance Coordinator Exploratory Modeling of Human-natural Systems Research Group - Advancing Systems Analysis Program

FotoQuest Austria

Photograph Austria's landscape and help environmental science!

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313