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CWAC - Coordinated Waterbird Counts

The Animal Demography Unit (ADU) launched the Coordinated Waterbird Counts (CWAC) project in 1992 as part South Africa’s commitment to International waterbird conservation. This is being done by means of a programme of regular mid-summer and mid-winter censuses at a large number of South African wetlands. Regular six-monthly counts are regarded as a minimum standard; however, we do encourage counters to survey their wetlands on a more regular basis as this provides more accurate data. All the counts are conducted by volunteers; people and organisations with a passion for waterbird conservation. It is one of the largest and most successful citizen science programmes in Africa, providing much needed data for waterbird conservation around the world. Currently the project regularly monitors over 400 wetlands around the country, and furthermore curates waterbird data for over 600 sites. The project’s Goal & Objectives are outlined below:


To act as an effective long-term waterbird monitoring tool, benefiting conservation efforts worldwide.

Ensure effective project management through working closely with a host of national and international stakeholders; steadily updating and integrating this network of people;

Coordinate, prioritise and expand waterbird surveys on a national scale with the emphasis on long-term monitoring;

Ensure effective data management throughout the project;

Manage, maintain and expand the project database;

Undertake effective IT development within the project, including the upkeep and expansion of the project website;

Disseminate data and results through the project website, reports, scientific papers, popular articles, direct liaison with stakeholders, or any other useful means;

Promote and facilitate the use of census data specifically for policy, planning and research purposes;

Raise awareness and promote the project through the website, popular articles, newsletters, interviews, talks, or any other appropriate means;

Submit census data towards the African Waterbird Census Programme in part fulfilment of South Africa’s contribution to international agreements such as Ramsar, Bonn and AEWA.


There are many reasons for collecting waterbird data from around the country. A comparison of counts from different wetlands gives indications of seasonal movements and the relative importance of sites for the conservation of different species. Long-term monitoring of population numbers on a site basis allows for the development of annual population indices to trace the fluctuations of populations. A few more reasons are listed below:


better understand how waterbirds use wetlands;

identify important wetlands for waterbird conservation;

provide information support for management policies;

assist in monitoring the health of wetlands;

raise awareness of importance of wetlands as biodiversity hotspots;

serve as an early warning system for wetland degradation;

serve as an early warning system for waterbird population decline.

Simple

Date (Creation)
2018-08-28
Edition

1.0

Purpose

To monitor the waterbird populations and their changes over time. This is a long term project. Data is collected by Citizen Scientists throughout the country

Status
On going
Owner
  FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology - Michael Brooks ( Information Systems Specialist )
University of Cape Town, Rondebosch , Cape Town , 7701 , South Africa
+27 21 650 4751
Maintenance and update frequency
Monthly
Keywords
Theme
  • African bird

  • Distribution maps

  • Fresh-water

  • Coastal and Marine

  • Lagoon

  • estuary

  • waterbirds

  • impoundment

  • population

Access constraints
Copyright
Use constraints
Copyright
Spatial representation type
Vector
Denominator
50000
Language
English
Character set
UTF8
Topic category
  • Environment
Begin date
1992-01-01
End date
2025-12-31
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S
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Reference system identifier
WGS 1984

Distributor

Custodian
  FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology
Name

ZIP

Version

1

OnLine resource
A list of services published are available at this URL. ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link )

Waterbird monitoring database system

OnLine resource
cwac-info9.pdf ( WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download )

CWAC Datasheet guidelines for field data collection

OnLine resource
cwac-sdcf-guidelines.pdf ( WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download )

CWAC Site data collection form guidelines

OnLine resource
CWAC_field_description.xlsx ( WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download )

CWAC Field Description

Hierarchy level
Dataset
Statement

unavailable

File identifier
06c83f2a-05d2-4291-aade-73863fb56073 XML
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Date stamp
2020-03-30T16:04:24
Metadata standard name

SANS 1878

Metadata standard version

FGDC-STD-001-1998

Custodian
  FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology - Information Systems Specialist
FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town , Cape Town , Rondebosch , 7701 , South Africa
+27 21 650 4751
Dataset URI

http://aduipt.uct.ac.za:8080/ipt-2.3.2/resource?r=cwac

 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W
thumbnail


Keywords

African bird Coastal and Marine Distribution maps Fresh-water Lagoon estuary impoundment population waterbirds

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