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CitizenClimate App User Guide

Welcome to the CitizenClimate app! This guide walks you through setting up your account, collecting data in the field, and using the dashboards for project developers and auditors.

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Updated October 2026 for app version 1.25. New in this version: Plan Vivo enrolment and dashboard, project site boundaries, the daily quality check, and an updated SDG dashboard.

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The Three User Roles

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When you sign up, you choose one of three roles. Your role decides what you see and what you can do.

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  • Community Member — the most common role. You collect field data with surveys, identify species, take part in the forum, complete lessons and raise grievances. You earn points, badges and, where your project offers them, local currency rewards.

  • Project Developer — you create and manage projects. You design surveys, invite community members, review and archive submissions, create lessons, set the project's site boundary, and use the SDG, biodiversity and Plan Vivo dashboards.

  • VVB (Validation & Verification Body) — a read-only role for independent auditors. After choosing the project to audit, you can review all of its data, open the Plan Vivo dashboard and download audit bundles. You cannot submit data or change anything.

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Getting Started

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The first time you open the app, 12 short slides introduce the main features. You can replay them at any time from your profile. Then:

  1. Tap Sign Up and enter your name, your email or a username, and a password.

  2. Choose your role: Community Member, Project Developer or VVB.

  3. If a project developer gave you an invite code, enter it in Invite Code (optional). You'll be placed straight into their project and community.

  4. No code? You can browse the available projects, or try the demo project to explore the app.

  5. You land on the Home screen, your main dashboard.

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Already have an account? Tap Log In and enter your email or username and password.

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Tip: tap the globe icon at the top of the screen to choose your language before you start.

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The Home Screen

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The Home screen is your starting point. At the top you'll find the Online / Offline badge (tap it to open Sync Status), the profile icon and the globe icon for language. The bar along the bottom takes you to the Leaderboard, SDG, Biodiversity, Education, Forum and Grievance screens.

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As a Community Member, you see:

  • Your name, role, points and badges, and how many submissions you need for your next badge

  • The project and community you belong to

  • The surveys you can fill in

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As a Project Developer, you also see:

  • Your project's details, with a pencil icon to edit the project, including its site boundary and Plan Vivo settings

  • A menu (⋮) on each survey to Edit Survey, Submit Data, View All Submissions or Archive Survey

  • Add New Survey, and the Surveys Archive for surveys you have retired

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As a VVB, you see the project you are auditing and, for Plan Vivo projects, a button to open the Plan Vivo dashboard.

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Submitting Data

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This is the core action. Open a survey from the Home screen (Project Developers use Submit Data in the survey's ⋮ menu).

  1. Read the survey description and tick the box to confirm you agree to take part.

  2. If the survey records your position, wait for Location obtained. Surveys that require a location won't start without a GPS fix.

  3. Tap Start Survey and answer each question in turn. A progress bar shows how far you've got.

  4. Questions can be multiple choice, text, numbers, dates, photos, videos, audio, species identification or GPS. Some only appear after certain answers.

  5. At the end, review your answers and tap Submit.

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No signal? Your submission is saved on your phone and sent automatically when you're back online. Each submission earns points towards your badges and the leaderboard.

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Daily quality check: submissions with photos, recordings or written answers are checked once a day. If one is clearly not genuine, such as an unrelated or reused photo, it is removed, its points are taken back, and you are told why.

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Species Identification (AI-Powered)

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Some survey questions use AI to identify plants, animals, birds, insects and mushrooms, or to check crop health.

  1. When you reach an identification question, take a photo or choose one from your gallery. For birds, record the bird's call.

  2. The app sends it to an AI identification service and shows a ranked list of possible matches with confidence scores.

  3. Tap a result to read a short summary about the species.

  4. Confirm the match, and add a count and any notes. Your location is attached automatically.

  5. Submit. You earn points and, if your project offers local currency rewards, tokens too.

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Each record shows the common and scientific names, the confidence score and the species' IUCN conservation status.

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If you're offline, the photo or recording is saved and identified when you reconnect. In Plan Vivo projects, every species is also matched automatically to the global GBIF species list. You don't need to do anything extra.

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Education

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The Education section has lessons created by your project developer, plus a set of default lessons.

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At the top, a Biodiversity Score card sums up your project's species, observations and endangered species, with its main diversity indices and a link to the full Biodiversity dashboard.

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  • Tap a lesson to read it. Many lessons end with a short quiz.

  • A green tick marks lessons you've completed.

  • Completing lessons earns points and counts towards your Lessons badges.

  • Project Developers can create their own lessons with text, images and video.

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Badges and Leaderboard

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You earn badges by reaching milestones in six categories, each with three levels:

  • Submissions — Novice Contributor (5), Active Contributor (20), Dedicated Contributor (50)

  • Lessons completed — Learner (5), Scholar (15), Educator (30)

  • Forum posts — New Voice (5), Community Speaker (20), Forum Leader (50)

  • Photos — Snap Starter (5), Visual Storyteller (20), Photo Chronicler (50)

  • Audio recordings — Sound Scout (5), Audio Archivist (20), Voice of Nature (50)

  • Members invited — Friendly Inviter (5), Community Builder (20), Network Champion (50)

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Project Developers can also add badges to individual surveys. Tap the badges on your Home card to open the Badges screen, which shows every badge, the ones you've earned and how many more you need.

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The Leaderboard ranks everyone in the project by points. The top three stand on a podium, and the Your Position card shows your rank, points and how many points you need to move up. Each entry also shows the person's community, badges, species identified and submissions.

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Forum

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The Forum is a discussion space for your project and community.

  • Choose a channel at the top: general project discussion or your own community.

  • Browse posts or search by keyword.

  • Tap a post to read it, like it and add a comment.

  • Tap + to create a post with a title, text and optional photos, videos or documents.

  • You can block users whose posts you don't want to see.

  • Posts load 20 at a time as you scroll.

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The forum needs an internet connection. Project Developers can remove inappropriate comments.

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Grievances

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The Grievance screen lets you formally raise a concern about the project.

  1. Tap File a Grievance.

  2. Give it a title and describe the issue.

  3. Your grievance is tracked with a status: Pending → Under Review → Resolved.

  4. The project developer can reply with a resolution note, which you'll see when you open the grievance.

  5. Other community members can vote grievances up or down, helping the developer prioritise.

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Grievances can't be deleted, and your name isn't shown to the project developer or to other members.

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SDG Analytics

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The SDG screen shows how the project is performing against the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

  • Metrics tab — a card for each SDG with its score and a trend arrow comparing it with last year (for example, "Significant improvement (>20%)").

  • Community Performance Overview — compares your communities side by side: a radar chart when you track three or more SDGs, grouped bars when you track one or two.

  • Survey Details — choose a survey to see line charts of scores over time (by year, by community or all together) and pie charts of how each community contributes.

  • Surveys tab — the SDG surveys behind the scores.

  • CSV / JSON — export everything with the buttons at the top.

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Community members fill in SDG surveys just like any other survey.

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Biodiversity

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The Biodiversity screen brings together every species record from identification questions.

  • Totals for species, observations and categories (birds, plants, animals, insects, mushrooms)

  • Diversity indices such as Shannon-Wiener, Simpson's and Pielou's evenness, each with a short explanation

  • Species listed by the IUCN as Vulnerable or worse are counted and flagged

  • Export the species data as CSV or JSON

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In Plan Vivo projects, a banner at the top opens the Plan Vivo dashboard (see Plan Vivo Dashboard below).

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Plan Vivo Enrolment (Project Developers)

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If your project is certified under Plan Vivo's PV Nature biodiversity standard, switch it on when you create or edit the project. It works with any subscription plan.

  1. Turn on Enrol in Plan Vivo (PV Nature).

  2. Choose the ecosystem (terrestrial, terrestrial + freshwater, mixed habitat or marine) and the certificate type (restoration or conservation).

  3. Pick the baseline year: the year that change is measured from.

  4. Tick the Target Groups you will monitor. Required groups are already ticked, the minimum number is shown, and each group shows its suggested method, such as acoustic BirdNET or camera trap. Groups that need eDNA are listed but can't be selected yet.

  5. For land-based sites, set the satellite options: the three-month NDVI season (or leave it on Auto), the cloud mask, and which land-cover classes count as low-intensity habitat.

  6. Save the project, and add a site boundary so the satellite measures can run.

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From then on, every species your team records is matched automatically to the GBIF species list and to its Target Group.

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Plan Vivo Dashboard (Project Developers & VVBs)

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The Plan Vivo dashboard shows the five PV Nature Pillar Metrics for the monitoring year:

  • Pillars 1–3 — Species Richness, Species Diversity and Taxonomic Dissimilarity, calculated from your field records

  • Pillars 4–5 — Habitat Health and Habitat Spatial Structure, calculated from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery inside your site boundary (Pillar 5 is measured at baseline and every five years)

  • Multimetric — the combined change since the baseline year

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How to use it:

  • Open it from the Plan Vivo banner on the Biodiversity screen. VVBs can also open it from the Home screen.

  • Project Developers tap Run Pillar Metrics. The satellite pillars are calculated on the server and can take several minutes, so refresh to see them.

  • Each tile shows the value and its change from the previous year.

  • The latest-run cards show when the metrics were calculated and with which software and, for satellite runs, the imagery window and share of cloud-free pixels.

  • Tap Download audit bundle to get a .zip with the data, code and results, so an auditor can re-run the calculation.

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Mapped Routes and Boundary Walkovers

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Two GPS survey tools capture geographic data in the field. Both need the mobile app.

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Mapped Route — start the GPS tracker and walk, cycle or drive a path. The app records your route as a line on a map and attaches it to your submission.

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Boundary Walkover — walk around the edge of a farm, field or plot. The app records your path and closes it into a polygon, giving you an accurate area. Useful for land-use monitoring.

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Routes and walkovers appear on the submissions map for your project developer and auditors.

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Project Site Boundary (Project Developers)

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The site boundary is the official area your project covers. Auditors can see it, and the Plan Vivo satellite measures are taken inside it. Open Edit Project (the pencil icon on Home) and find the Site boundary card:

  • Upload KML — choose a KML, KMZ or GeoJSON file exported from Google Earth or GIS software.

  • Draw / edit on map — tap the satellite map to place corner points, then tap Finish polygon. Drag a point to move it, use Undo point to remove the last one, and Add another part for sites made of separate areas. My location centres the map on you.

  • The card shows the boundary on a map with its area in hectares, number of parts and source.

  • Remove boundary deletes it if you need to start again.

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The app checks every file. It tells you if a file has no polygon or uses the wrong coordinate system, and it simplifies very detailed boundaries automatically. Sites over 10,000 ha are flagged, because Plan Vivo samples them differently.

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Reviewing Submissions and Quality Checks (Project Developers)

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Open View All Submissions from a survey's ⋮ menu to review what your team has collected.

  • A map shows where each submission was made. Group the list by user, search, and filter by any answer.

  • Tap a submission to see its answers, photos, recordings, AI identifications, location and time.

  • Tap JSON or CSV to export the raw data.

  • If a submission is wrong, tap Archive, pick a reason (Duplicate submission, Incorrect data, Test submission, Incomplete submission, Fraudulent entry or Other) and add a note. Archived submissions are never deleted. Open View Archived Submissions to see them with their reasons.

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Automatic daily check: every day the platform reviews new submissions that contain photos, recordings or written answers. Clearly faulty ones (unrelated photos, photos with no plant or animal, photos of screens, junk text, or media reused from another submission) are archived with a reason beginning "AI verification:". The points and rewards earned for them are taken back, and the member gets a notification in their own language. Anything uncertain is left for a person to check.

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Offline Mode

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The app is built for places with no signal.

  • Your phone keeps your surveys, lessons and recent submissions, so you can keep working offline.

  • Submissions made offline are saved in a queue on your phone, with the time and place you recorded them.

  • When you're back online, the app sends them automatically.

  • The badge next to Home shows Online or Offline. Tap it to open Sync Status, which has three tabs: Pending (waiting to send), Action Required (anything that needs you, such as a failed upload to retry) and History (what has been sent).

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Some features need a connection: the leaderboard, the forum, the SDG, biodiversity and Plan Vivo dashboards, and finishing an AI species identification.

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Inviting Others

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Bring people into your project with an invite code or QR code.

  1. Open your Profile and tap Invite Others.

  2. Project Developers choose the project and community, then tap Generate QR Code. Community Members get a code for their own project and community straight away.

  3. Share the code or QR image through any app: WhatsApp, email, SMS and so on.

  4. When someone signs up and enters your code in Invite Code (optional), they join your project and community automatically.

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You earn 50 points for each person who joins with your code, and you progress towards your Invites badges.

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Profile and Settings

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Tap the profile icon at the top of the Home screen to:

  • Edit your display name (pencil icon)

  • See your email, role and project

  • Switch project: Project Developers pick from the dropdown, and Community Members can move to another project or community

  • Create a new project (Project Developers)

  • Invite others

  • Replay the tutorial with View Tutorial

  • Sign out or delete your account

  • Read the Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy

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Language Support

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The app is available in 11 languages: English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Ukrainian, Swahili, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Tagalog and Portuguese.

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Tap the globe icon on the Home screen, or on the welcome, login and sign-up screens, and pick a language. Your choice is saved and applies across the whole app, including notifications.

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We can also add your language or dialect for free.

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Tips for New Users

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  • Use an invite code if you have one — it puts you in the right project and community automatically.

  • Try the demo project to explore the app before joining a real project. It has sample surveys, forum posts and leaderboard data.

  • Don't wait for signal — collect data in the field even when offline. It syncs when you're back online.

  • Check the Education section first — lessons explain what you're collecting and why, which makes surveys easier to fill in accurately.

  • Submit only your own, new observations — reused or unrelated photos are caught by the daily check and their points are taken back.

  • Track your progress — the Badges screen and the Leaderboard show how close you are to your next badge or rank.

  • Project Developers: add your site boundary early and, for Plan Vivo projects, enrol before collecting data so every record is tagged from day one.

One App,
Many Uses

CitizenClimate is a mobile app for collecting environmental data in the field. It's used by communities, project developers, and independent auditors to monitor nature-based carbon credit projects — tracking things like biodiversity, land use, community wellbeing, and SDG (UN Sustainable Development Goal) progress. Think of it as a structured field notebook that syncs to the cloud, works offline, and rewards participation.

Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play
Citizen Science App Track SDG community led dMRV biodiversity monitoring
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