Monitor (verb): To watch, observe, or check, especially for a purpose.

Monitoring waterbird populations and habitats across the continent is required to determine conservation status, detect population trends, assess health of habitats and indicate whether environmental changes and management prescriptions are affecting waterbirds.

The North American Waterbird Conservation Plan advocates a partnership in which participants work together to obtain the information necessary for waterbird conservation. The goals of this partnership for monitoring include promoting centralized data storage and management, developing standardized survey methods, developing statistically valid and logistically feasible sampling schemes tied to hypotheses, developing standardized models for analyses of data, and identifying and filling gaps in continental waterbird monitoring programs.

Read more about…

• Técnicas para los Inventario y Monitoreo de Aves Acuáticas
  (Un taller del NAOC 2006)

Existing Surveys by Region – see 

• Regional Plans

Centralized Data Storage and Access –

• Waterbird Monitoring Database
• NBII Bird Node
• Pacific Seabird Monitoring Database
• International Waterbird Census

Standardized Methods –

• Draft Manual of Recommended Breeding Season Population Census Techniques for Seabirds and Colonial Waterbirds

• Recommendations for Marshbird Monitoring