South Africa’s Biodiversity data pipeline for wetlands and waterbirds – the ‘BIRDIE Project’
The BIRDIE online platform for African wetland and waterbird information is now live – please visit https://birdie.sanbi.org.za/
The BIRDIE platform gathers and interprets data about wetlands and waterbirds to provide information that is useful for decision making. It sources data from citizen science databases, which are checked and analysed using statistical models. An online dashboard allows users to access up-to-date indicators about bird distribution, abundance and richness at wetland sites. The information can be used for reporting, management, research and as a resource for birders.
Citizen scientists can contribute to BIRDIE by adding to the underlying datasets for birds hosted by the University of Cape Town: the Coordinated Waterbird Counts (CWAC) and Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP).
http://sabap2.birdmap.africa/howto
The BIRDIE platform’s development was funded by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation. SANBI leads a consortium of collaborators working on this innovative data pipeline: the University of Cape Town (Centre for Statistics in Ecology, Environment and Conservation, and Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology), Sol Plaatje University, Seascape Belgium and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.
For more information on the project please contact the project’s Principal Investigator Nancy Job or the project manager Carol Poole, or visit the JRS Biodiversity Foundation website.