Full project title:
Improving the Capabilities of the EuroBirdPortal Project in Order to Boost its Contribution Towards EU Policy Objectives Under the Birds Directive and the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy
Duration:
July 1, 2023 – December 31, 2026
Total value:
€1,110,605.44
Funds provided for Association BIOM activities:
€7,365.39
Project lead:
Centro de Investigación Ecológica y Aplicaciones Forestales
Partners:
Sovon Vogelonderzoek Nederland,
Centro de Investigación Ecológica y Aplicaciones Forestales (CREAF),
Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB),
Česká společnost ornitologická (ČSO),
Institut Català d’Ornitologia (ICO),
Societatea Ornitologică Română (SOR),
Macedonian Ecological Society,
Bird Protection and Study Society of Serbia (BPSSS),
Ornithological Society Naše Ptice
Contact person: Lluis Brotons
Project goals
Improving the geographical coverage and the overall quality of the bird-related data collected in Europe by increasing participation, data collection and use of more structured data collection protocols, particularly, in Southeastern and Eastern Europe.
Producing two demonstrative outputs using the collected data and the existing EBP framework and showcasing how the improved capabilities of the EBP project could be applied to help implement key EU Biodiversity Strategy goals.
Enlisting all of Europe’s bird species in the EuroBirdPortal (EBP) data flow in order to facilitate a high standard of quality for ornithological data in Europe and making the data available to the general public through the EBP viewer.
Project summary
The EuroBirdPortal (EBP) is an online platform which aggregates year-round ornithological data from 31 countries via a growing list of portals and applications for observing and recording birds. Most of the data is collected either with a simple protocol (complete lists) or sometimes sporadically, without a protocol. Since the data collected is geographically and seasonally widely distributed, it has lots of potential for researching the spatiotemporal patterns of bird distributions across Europe. Data collected with protocols is especially important since it’s more methodologically robust and allows for better analyses. As such, one of the main goals of the project is to increase both the quantity and quality of the collected data.
Since most of the data is collected on a volunteer, citizen science basis, it’s very important to visualize all of the collected observations in a manner useful for the general public. Another goal of the project is to improve the already existing EBP viewer which allows for monitroing the yearly dispersal of over a hundread European species, as well as to produce other outputs which will highlight the increased capacity of EBP.
Areas lacking in data produce knowledge gaps, in turn making large scale research more difficult and the visualization of data less comprehensive. Eastern and Southeastern Europe are areas with very scarce data and a small population of users of birdwatching portals, resulting in very large knowledge gaps. In order to make observations from these parts more prevalent in data sets and to further the ornithological knowledge of these areas, the project focuses especially on countries from these regions. The main activities for Eastern and Southeastern Europe are the development and maintenance of ornithological portals to encourage local birdwatchers to share their observations, while communication campaigns and workshops focused on structured data collection aim to ensure a higher quality of the data collected.
Materials and publications
