PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
All over Europe, ordinary citizens, especially bird watchers, are increasingly contributing to the provision of up-to-date, reliable and policy-relevant data on nature and biodiversity. The vast amount of data collected through the existing online bird portals offers great potential for understanding the temporal and spatial distribution of birds across large areas. Aggregating the existing datasets at EU level in an effective and policy-relevant way is highly desirable and would be of high added value for EU biodiversity policy (in particular the Habitats and Birds Directives), but several challenges must be overcome.
A prototype EuroBirdPortal (EBP) was recently developed. It is a common data repository with a demonstration viewer that allows species-specific animated maps of bird migration over Europe to be displayed for the first time. It holds data from each of the existing online bird systems in Europe, but further improvements and adjustments are needed to increase the value, reliability and relevance of this tool throughout the entire EU.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE Euro Bird Portal project aimed to develop the existing EuroBirdPortal (EBP) demo viewer into a full-fledged web portal displaying reliable Europe-wide patterns of bird distribution in near real time.
Specifically, the project aimed to:
- Create a new EBP data sharing standard, database repository and data-flow system capable of managing automatically and in near real time all data interchange processes between the local online portals and the central databank;
- Adapt and improve the current EBP demo viewer and the spatial bird distribution models in order to reliably display detailed and up-to-date, Europe-wide spatiotemporal patterns of bird distribution in near real time;
- Increase the geographical coverage of the EBP project to include most of the European Union (more than 90% of its territory); and
- Improve the quality and relevance of the data collected.
A complementary objective was to promote ‘citizen science data collection’ on an EU-wide scale; this project was expected to provide a best practice example for compiling and displaying citizen science information on a European level.
RESULTS
The LIFE Euro Bird Portal project modified and improved the EuroBird Portal (EBP). It is now full-fledged web portal that shows the distribution of 105 bird species across Europe, on weekly animated maps displaying data from January 2010 up to the current week, and at a resolution of 30x30 km2.
The bird observation data is collected on a daily basis from 28 European countries and is submitted automatically to a central repository created during the project. The data is subsequently aggregated by week and 30x30 square kilometres. The repository generates the tables that are then used to render the different map and graphic visualisations in the EBP viewer. The main outcome is the production of daily maps and graphs showing near real-time information. The data summarises information on the number of observations of each species, the number of counted birds and the recording effort. Four types of maps (occurrence, traces, counts and phenology) reflect, in different ways, the raw information contained in the aggregated data, while the fifth map (corrected regional occurrence) uses analytical procedures to account for heterogeneity in the observation effort and the species reporting rates. In total, around 40 million map combinations are possible. The EBP viewer and the central database now cover all EU countries (except Malta) plus Turkey, Norway and Switzerland; they have been updated with more than 320 million items of new data since the LIFE project started thanks to the participation of more than 120 000 bird watchers across the EU.
Specific results of the project include:
- The definition of a new data sharing format and the implementation of a new database repository infrastructure. The data flow from 15 local/regional online portals to the EBP database was automated successfully in most cases (it was done manually before the project);
- The doubling of the number of bird species available in the portal (105 species compared to 50 initially), with data from 2010 onwards added to the database;
- Improvement of the data modelling and the overall viewer design: the new EBP viewer is visually attractive, has new functionalities, and can be used from any device including smart phones. It is also free of access and can be used by all;
- Increase in the number of EBP partners from 69 to 82 in 2019 (note that one country might be covered by various entities participating in the EBP); these partners cover more than 98% of the EU territory (more than initially targeted);
- Increase in the submission of complete lists over casual observations 23% to 35%, meaning a significant increase in the relevance and quality of the data;
- Improved engagement of bird watchers in reporting bird observations in eastern and south-eastern countries thanks to the support provided by the project team to 10 countries, as well as in initially poorly surveyed countries such as Spain and Portugal;
- Combination of EBP data with Radar and EURING datasets, which shows the enormous potential of the EBP data; and
- Definition of best practices to improve online portals data quality and validation, for example defining how to best collect data in order to deliver high-quality information that can be used to tackle policy-relevant questions on a European scale.
The LIFE Euro Bird Portal project is an example of efficient and far-reaching collaboration between 82 European entities. It is the largest citizen science initiative at EU level and is also the only big data project in Europe dealing with biodiversity data. It shows how the work of many entities, scientists and bird watchers can be combined and gathered to deliver relevant outcomes at a European level.
The final project outputs are highly relevant for research, nature conservation, education and policy enforcement and development. The EBP offers enormous possibilities for the future, although it will depend largely on external funding. Future collaborations with relevant organisation and institutions at EU level will be crucial to make the best use of the data produced.
Finally, the project is an exemplary citizen-science initiative at EU level and could be of special relevance to other organisations working with citizen communities with other taxonomic groups such as butterflies or mammals.
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).
