Dave Lemberg, PhD, AICP is an Associate Professor of geography at Western Michigan University.  His research interests include Urban and regional Planning, Landscape Ecology, and Geographical Information Science with a focus on habitat restoration through urban and suburban landscaping practices.  He is also the Director of the Michigan Heritage Watertrail program, promoting economic development and education through paddling trails on Michigan's rivers and Great Lakes coastline.

Projects and Problems: Location, Scale, and Precision in Citizen Science

Georeferencing data from many diverse sources at a variety of spatial scales has been an ongoing problem in citizen science data collecting initiatives. The development of web-based georeferencing tools has allowed the creation of “mashups” integrating address-based or map-based georeferencing online with web-based database servers. This presentation will focus on the components of mashup development and on issues of location, scale, and precision in citizen science data collection initiatives. Some illustrations will be used from two of our projects: the Michigan Heritage Water Trail which promotes economic development and education through a focus on history, culture, and the environment and the Kalamazoo Street Trees Biodiversity Project seeks to develop a model for interactively assisting in the choice of replacement street trees (destroyed by the Emerald Ash Borer) based on site location attributes while maximizing biodiversity on a local scale.