On Saturday, March 7, 2020, a workshop on “Scuba Diving and Citizen Science” was held in the Hall of Events of the Hellenic Maritime Museum. The event was organized on the occasion of the two years of activities by the Underwater Surveying Team (UST) of the Laboratory of Topography, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Faculty of Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh).
The purpose of the event was to explore the prospects of the relationship between Scuba Diving and Citizen Science in our country. Considering these two as important pillars for the conservation of the underwater natural and cultural heritage, for the sustainability of the Greek seas and for the advancement of ocean science, the first part of the event highlighted “good practices” related to information, awareness raising, training or active participation, while, in the second part examples and perspectives of individual or group initiatives for direct or indirect support for scientific work in the underwater environment were presented. In the third and most crucial part, there was an open discussion on how to involve scuba divers in scientific research activities in Greece. Finally, there were questions and suggestions for further exploring the Scuba Diving landscape, regarding the existing context and potential developments in the Sea area. Eleven speakers with ten presentations attended the event, which was attended by fifty people.
Additionally, the audience had the opportunity to participate in a questionnaire based research for “Scuba Diving and Citizen Science”. This research is done in the framework of ScienceDIVER “Cross-sectoral skills for the Blue Economy labor market” (project id: 863674, EMFF-Blue Economy-2018), which is coordinated by Laboratory of Topography, AUTh (sciencediver.eu).
The conference presentations are available in pdf format, at the following links:
- Introductory Presentation. K. Tokmakidis (UST)
- “Citizen science programs for the recording of marine biodiversity”, A. Dailianis (IMBBC/ HCMR)
- “Citizen Science in Support of Local Environmental Knowledge – the Experience of iSea in the Last Three Years“, N. Doumbas, I. Giovos, P. Klitou, D. Poursanidis (iSea)
- “Hippocampus Marine Institute”, by V. Mentogiannis
- “Training in Scientific Diving Methodology and Techniques”, N. Karatzas
- “Educational and Research Activities of the Underwater Surveying Team for Citizens”, K. Papadimitriou (UST)
- “Citizen Science and Maritime Archaeology in Greece. Data and Perspectives”, A. Tourtas (UST), Th. Theodoulou (EUA)
- “Proposal to bring modern-day Magnesia wreckage by the local dive community”, A. Maglis (ATLANTIS)
- “Sustainable Development and the Underwater Legacy of the Navy“, P. Tripodikas (UST)
- “Recovering the war shipwrecks”, A. Bilalis (UST)
- “Documentation and highlighting of the story of a WWII shipwreck“, N. Sidiropoulos (UST), S. Tsioumas (UST)