In this collaborative ‘citizen science’ project the Centre and Cornish digital company, Sea Communications, are developing an interactive application and digital platform.

The project is aiming to collect data on a national scale to explore relationships between the quality of natural environments and human health and wellbeing.

Evidence suggests that people exposed to higher quality environments – with greater biodiversity – report better health than those in lesser environments. The project is seeking to understand how factors such as litter, graffiti and other environmental incivilities impact on our health, and how they interact with each other.

The project is allowing both researchers and Sea to improve their analyses of large amounts of data, gathered directly from public participation.

Led by Associate Research Fellows, Dr Sahran Higgins and Dr Rebecca Lovell, it is hoped the work so far will feed into the development of a much larger project and advance Sea Communication’s skills and expertise in web mapping ‒ a key growth area for its business.

“We are delighted to be working with the Centre on an exciting project exploring how digital technology can be used to engage the public in scientific research. It’s been a really useful process and we hope to continue this great working relationship.” Kathryn Woolf, Sea Communications