Waarnemingen.be - Bird occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium
Citation
Van Asten K, Bouillard N, Driessens G, Dujardin R, Van Dorsselaer P, Vanderydt C, Ghyselen J, Maes K, Vermylen R, Teugels L, Pintens J, Adriaens P, Desmet E, Van De Ginste C, Leirens V, Allein S, Symens P, Faveyts W, Appels D, De Broyer A, Moysons P, Meganck G, De Keersmaecker K, Verbelen D, Hamelinck W, Moreau K, Beckers G, de Vries H, Baeten S, Gielen K, Vanreusel W, Herremans M, Desmet P, Swinnen K (2021). Waarnemingen.be - Bird occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium. Version 1.4. Natuurpunt. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/0mbhvd accessed via GBIF.org on 2025-05-17.Description
Waarnemingen.be - Bird occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium is a species occurrence dataset published by Natuurpunt. The dataset contains over 12.8 million bird (Aves) occurrences of 445 naturally occurring species (native, vagrant or migrant species), recorded by volunteers (citizen scientists), mainly since 2008. The occurrences are derived from the database http://www.waarnemingen.be, hosted at the nature conservation NGO Natuurpunt in collaboration with Stichting Natuurinformatie. Standardized information regarding sex, lifeStage, behavior, occurrenceRemarks, and samplingProtocol are included as well.
Generalized and/or withheld information: location information is generalized to 5 x 5 km² Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid cells. Observer name, exact XY-coordinates, toponyms, and photographs are not included in the published dataset, but are known in the source database.
To allow anyone to use this dataset, we have released the data to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). We would appreciate however, if you read and follow these norms for data use (http://www.natuurpunt.be/normen-voor-datagebruik) and provide a link to the original dataset (https://doi.org/10.15468/0mbhvd) whenever possible. If you use these data for a scientific paper, please cite the dataset following the applicable citation norms and/or consider us for co-authorship. We are always interested to provide more information or know how you have used the data, so please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or natuurdata@natuurpunt.be.
The publication of this dataset is supported by INBO and funded by Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) as part of the Belgian contribution to LifeWatch.
Sampling Description
Study Extent
See geographic coverage.Sampling
The observations (species, date, location, observer) were recorded by volunteers (citizen scientists) at http://www.waarnemingen.be. The dataset also includes historical records and datasets imported in waarnemingen.be. The majority of the data are presence-only data (absence data are not included in this dataset).Quality Control
Recorded data are constantly verified by species group specialists taking collection specimens, the observer’s species knowledge, added photographs and known species list of locations into account. The validation procedure from www.waarnemingen.be consists of an interactive procedure in which observers can be asked for additional information by a team of validators, after which the validator manually adds a validation status. Records that are not manually validated are additionally checked by an automated validation procedure that takes into account the number of manually validated observations within a specified date and distance range. 5% of the observations in this dataset are supported by photographs on www.waarnemingen.be. The validation status is indicated in the field identificationVerificationStatus, the link to the original record in references.Method steps
- Not provided.
Taxonomic Coverages
The dataset contains 445 naturally occurring bird (Aves) species (as well as a number of subspecies, hybrids and multispecies) recorded in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region. This includes species that are native, vagrant or migrant.
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Animaliacommon name: animals rank: kingdom
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Chordatarank: phylum
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Avescommon name: birds rank: class
Geographic Coverages
Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region. These regions are situated in the north of Belgium and cover an area of 13,522 km² and 162 km² respectively (13,684 km² in total or 45% of the Belgian territory). Flanders is largely covered by agricultural land and urban areas while the Brussels Capital Region is mainly urban. All occurrence data are generalized to grid cells of 5 x 5 km² of the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system, with the grid codes indicated in the field verbatimCoordinates. The WGS84 centroids of these grid cells are calculated in decimalLatitude/Longitude with a coordinateUncertaintyInMeters of 3,536 meters using Wieczorek et al. (2004).
Bibliographic Citations
- Wieczorek J, Guo QG, Hijmans RJ (2004) The point-radius method for georeferencing locality descriptions and calculating associated uncertainty. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 18: 745–767. https://doi.org/10.1080/13658810412331280211 -
Contacts
Kristof Van Astenoriginator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: kristof.van.asten@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Nils Bouillard
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: nils.bouillard@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Gerald Driessens
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: gerald.driessens@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Rudi Dujardin
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: rudi.dujardin@aves.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Pieter Van Dorsselaer
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: pieter.vandorsselaer@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Carlo Vanderydt
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: carlo.vanderydt@pandora.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Jonas Ghyselen
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: jonasghyselen93@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Koen Maes
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Robin Vermylen
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: robinvermylen77@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Luc Teugels
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: luc_mieke@skynet.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Joachim Pintens
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: joachim.pintens@yahoo.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Peter Adriaens
originator
Corridor
BE
email: p_adriaens@yahoo.com
Emmanuel Desmet
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: emmanuel-desmet@skynet.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Carlos Van De Ginste
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: carlos.vandeginste@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Vincent Leirens
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: vincentleirens@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Serge Allein
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: serge.allein@skynet.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Peter Symens
originator
Natuurpunt Beleid
BE
email: peter.symens@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Wouter Faveyts
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: wouter.faveyts@telenet.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Diane Appels
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: diane.appels@skynet.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Alain De Broyer
originator
Natagora
BE
email: adebroyer@yahoo.fr
homepage: https://www.natagora.be
Pieter Moysons
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: pieter.moysons@gmail.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Geert Meganck
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: overmeersevogels@telenet.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Kris De Keersmaecker
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: kris_kdk76@yahoo.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Dominique Verbelen
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: dominique.verbelen@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Walter Hamelinck
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: wal.ham@telenet.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Kelle Moreau
originator
RBINS / OD Natuur
BE
email: kelle.moreau@gmail.com
homepage: https://www.naturalsciences.be
Geert Beckers
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: geertbeckers@yahoo.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Hisko de Vries
originator
Zostera
NL
email: hiskodevries@gmail.com
homepage: http://zostera.nl
Stijn Baeten
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: stijn.baeten@yahoo.com
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Karin Gielen
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: karin.gielen@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Wouter Vanreusel
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: wouter.vanreusel@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Marc Herremans
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: marc.herremans@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
Peter Desmet
originator
Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
BE
email: peter.desmet@inbo.be
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8442-8025
Kristijn Swinnen
originator
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: kristijn.swinnen@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1910-9247
originator
all bird observers
BE
homepage: http://www.waarnemingen.be
Kristijn Swinnen
metadata author
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: kristijn.swinnen@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1910-9247
Peter Desmet
metadata author
Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
BE
email: peter.desmet@inbo.be
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8442-8025
Marc Herremans
administrative point of contact
Natuurpunt Studie
BE
email: marc.herremans@natuurpunt.be
homepage: http://www.natuurpunt.be