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Les articles de Laura DamiBird monitoring in Africa: present state and future prospects
de Philip W. Atkinson, Ngone Diop, Robert A. Robinson, Res Altwegg, Arjun Amar, Ian Barber, André J. Botha, Graeme Buchanan, Achilles Byaruhanga, Adams Chaskda, et al.
In Bird Conservation International, 36 (January, 2026), e12
En ligne : www.cambridge.org[...]
Biodiversity monitoring is essential to inform the state of wildlife populations, and the impacts of environmental change, conservation intervention, and sustainable development policies and actions. We review the current state of bird monitoring across Africa using public questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. We received 87 questionnaire responses from 46 (of 54) countries and, additionally, 24 in-depth interviews were carried out. Multiple data collection methods were reported with total counts of individuals being most frequent, but all-species surveys, essential for quantifying ecosystem health, were restricted to bird atlases and Common Bird Monitoring (CBM) projects in Kenya, Uganda, and Botswana. Data collection relied largely on volunteers, but their motivation, recruitment, training, and retention is a continuing challenge. The most sustainable programmes were driven by clear policy objectives (e.g. waterbird monitoring under the Ramsar Convention or the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species), monitoring of individual groups (e.g. raptors, vultures, bustards), specific threatened species, and where clear national priorities had been set within government agencies. Use of monitoring data by governments in country biodiversity reports or National Biodiversity Species Action Plans (NBSAPs) varied widely and, for many countries, simply did not exist. A lack of skilled analysts and a comprehensive approach to data curation and ownership were identified as major limitations. A more strategic approach to funding and monitoring is needed, whereby smaller funders collaborate to reduce costs associated with applying for small amounts of money, and bird (and biodiversity) monitoring is explicitly integrated with sustainable development goals to exploit broader funding streams.
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La surveillance de la biodiversité est essentielle pour informer sur l’état des populations sauvages et ainsi que sur les impacts des changements environnementaux, des mesures de conservation et des politiques et actions de développement durable. Nous avons examiné l’état actuel de la surveillance des oiseaux en Afrique à l’aide de questionnaires publics et d’entretiens semi-structurés. Nous avons reçu 87 réponses provenant de 46 pays (sur 54) et, en complément, 24 entretiens approfondis ont été menés. Plusieurs méthodes de collecte de données ont été rapportées, les dénombrements totaux d’individus étant les plus fréquents, cependant les inventaires couvrant toutes les espèces, essentielles pour quantifier la santé des écosystèmes étaient limités aux atlas ornithologiques et aux programmes de Suivi des Oiseaux Communs (CBM) au Kenya, en Ouganda et au Botswana. La collecte des données reposait largement sur des bénévoles, mais leur motivation, leur recrutement, leur formation et leur fidélisation restent des défis permanents. Les programmes les plus durables étaient ceux motivés par des objectifs politiques clairs (par exemple le suivi des oiseaux d’eau dans le cadre de la Convention de Ramsar ou de la Convention sur la Conservation des Espèces Migratrices), le suivi de groupes particuliers (par exemple les rapaces, vautours, outardes), des espèces menacées spécifiques, ainsi que ceux où des priorités nationales clairement définies avaient été établies au sein des agences gouvernementales. L’utilisation de données librement accessibles par les gouvernements dans les rapports nationaux sur la biodiversité ou les Plans d’Action Nationaux pour la Biodiversité (NBSAPs) variait considérablement et, pour de nombreux pays, était inexistante. Le manque d’analystes qualifiés et l’absence d’approche cohérente en matière de gestion et de propriété des données ont été identifiés comme des obstacles majeurs. Une approche plus stratégique du financement et du suivi est nécessaire, dans laquelle les petits bailleurs collaborent pour réduire les coûts liés aux demandes de financements de faible montant, et où le suivi des oiseaux (et de la biodiversité) est explicitement intégré aux objectifs de développement durable afin d’exploiter des sources de financement plus larges.
de Laura Dami, Marta Lago, Khalil Baddour, Marion Vittecoq, Thomas Galewski
Arles : Medwaterbirds Network, 2025
Le Mediterranean Waterbirds Network (MWN) joue un rôle crucial en coordonnant les dénombrements d’oiseaux d’eau dans 13 pays méditerranéens. L'objectif principal de ce réseau est d'améliorer la qualité des données à travers des formations et des échanges d'informations entre les différentes parties prenantes.
Entre 2019 et 2023, un total de 222 zones humides ont été identifiées comme sites d'importance internationale selon la Convention de Ramsar, dont la moitié est déjà désignée comme telles, soulignant ainsi leur valeur écologique.
Cependant, plusieurs populations d'oiseaux d'eau font face à des préoccupations croissantes, notamment l’Erismature à tête blanche, qui est en déclin. Les changements climatiques et la perte d’habitats sont des facteurs particulièrement préoccupants pour leur survie.
En revanche, 19 populations d'oiseaux présentent des signes d’augmentation, surtout dans des régions comme l'Europe du Nord-Ouest, ce qui est encourageant. Néanmoins, la menace de l’influenza aviaire pèse lourdement sur les oiseaux sauvages, rendant la surveillance et la conservation essentielles.
Il est donc impératif d’intensifier les efforts de sensibilisation, d'améliorer les habitats et de gérer les prélèvements pour soutenir les espèces menacées dans cette région riche en biodiversité. [résumé rédigé par IA]
de Laura Dami, Wed Abdou, Antoine Arnaud, Hichem Azafzaf, Arnaud Béchet, Nadjiba Bendjedda, Khalil Baddour, Mohamed Dakki, Ugoline Godeau, Khaled Etayeb
Tunis (Tunisie) : SPA/RAC publications, 2025, 44-57
En ligne : www.spa-rac.org[...]
The Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus) is listed in the appendices of several international conservation agreements including the Barcelona Convention. We combined 30 years of data from the International Waterbird Censuses (IWC) across North Africa, coordinated by the Mediterranean Waterbirds Network (MWN), with over 30 years of monitoring by the “The Network for the study and conservation of the Greater Flamingos in the Mediterranean and West Africa” to assess trends of the species in the Mediterranean basin. Wintering bird count data were analysed using a new statistical approach called LORI, while breeding data were summarized through descriptive analyses. The number of breeding pairs in the Camargue, as well as across the broader Mediterranean region, has generally increased over the past few decades. A similar trend has been observed for wintering flamingos in North Africa. In the last five years, both breeding and wintering populations appear to stabilize despite important fluctuations from year to year. Strengthening the link between breeding and wintering monitoring networks could provide critical insights into emerging trends and underlying causes of these changes.Wintering population of White-headed Duck in Tunisia and Algeria
de Hichem Azafzaf, Sami Rebah, Claudia Feltrup‐Azafzaf, Nadjiba Bendjedda, Moujib Gabous, Samir Sayoud, Laura Dami
In Dutch Birding, 47(1) (January, 2025), 22-26
On 14 January 2022, during the International Waterbird Census (IWC), a large concentration of more than 2220 White-headed Ducks Oxyura leucocephala was observed at Sebkhet Sejoumi in Tunis, north-eastern Tunisia. This is the largest number of this species ever reported at national level and for a single site in Tunisia. This paper examines the origin of these birds and the significance of the observation.Exposure of wetlands important for nonbreeding waterbirds to sea-level rise in the Mediterranean
de Fabien Verniest, Thomas Galewski, Olivier Boutron, Laura Dami, Pierre Defos du Rau, Anis Guelmami, Romain Julliard, Nadège Popoff, Marie Suet, Loic Willm, et al.
In Conservation Biology, 2024 (May, 2024), e14288
En ligne : onlinelibrary.wiley.com[...]
Sea-level rise (SLR) is expected to cause major changes to coastal wetlands, which are among the world's most vulnerable ecosystems and are critical for nonbreeding waterbirds. Because strategies for adaptation to SLR, such as nature-based solutions and designation of protected areas, can locally reduce the negative effects of coastal flooding under SLR on coastal wetlands, it is crucial to prioritize adaptation efforts, especially for wetlands of international importance for biodiversity. We assessed the exposure of coastal wetlands important for nonbreeding waterbirds to projected SLR along the Mediterranean coasts of 8 countries by modeling future coastal flooding under 7 scenarios of SLR by 2100 (from 44- to 161-cm rise) with a static inundation approach. Exposure to coastal flooding under future SLR was assessed for 938 Mediterranean coastal sites (≤30 km from the coastline) where 145 species of nonbreeding birds were monitored as part of the International Waterbird Census and for which the monitoring area was delineated by a polygon (64.3% of the coastal sites monitored in the Mediterranean region). Thirty-four percent of sites were threatened by future SLR, even under the most optimistic scenarios. Protected study sites and study sites of international importance for waterbirds were, respectively, 1.5 and 2 times more exposed to SLR than the other sites under the most optimistic scenario. Accordingly, we advocate for the development of a prioritization scheme to be applied to these wetlands for the implementation of strategies for adaptation to SLR to anticipate the effects of coastal flooding. Our study provides major guidance for conservation planning under global change in several countries of the Mediterranean region.
de Fabien Verniest, Isabelle Le Viol, Romain Julliard, Laura Dami, Anis Guelmami, Marie Suet, Wed Abdou, Hichem Azafzaf, Nadjiba Bendjedda, Taulant Bino, et al.
In Biological Conservation, 279 (March, 2023), 10
En ligne : www.sciencedirect.com[...]
Thermal adjustment of waterbird communities to climate warming is crucial but hampered by natural habitat conversion, increasing their climatic debt. As it is, in contrast, facilitated in protected areas, assessing the adequacy of the current protected areas network with respect to future climate and land-use changes and identifying priority sites to protect is of major importance. In this study, we assess the thermal adjustment limitations that non-breeding waterbird communities might experience by the end of the 21st century in the Mediterranean region to highlight priorities for wetland protection. Priorities were set by combining the exposure of waterbird communities to natural habitat conversion and climate warming with their thermal specialization. The latter was calculated using winter abundance data of 151 species from 2932 sites of the International Waterbird Census in 21 Mediterranean countries. Exposure was assessed using future projections of temperature and land-use under four CMIP6 scenarios (SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, SSP3–7.0, and SSP5–8.5). We found that strictly protected areas are located in wetlands whose waterbird communities, without protection, would likely experience high limitations in thermal adjustment in the coming decades. This highlights that the location of existing protected areas may effectively support the thermal adjustment of waterbird communities to future climate warming. However, 490 sites considered at risk lack protection, including 32 sites of international importance for waterbirds, stressing the need to strengthen the protected areas network in these sites in priority. Our study provides important guidance for conservation planning in the Mediterranean region to support waterbird responses to climate change. /
Dans notre étude, nous avons évalué les difficultés potentielles des communautés d’oiseaux d’eau hivernants à ajuster leur composition aux futurs changements de température en combinant la spécialisation thermique de la communauté avec deux métriques d’exposition à l’augmentation future des températures hivernales et à la perte future d’habitats naturels à l’horizon 2090 selon quatre scénarios futurs différents. Nous avons ainsi constaté que les aires protégées, et notamment celles strictement protégées, sont situées dans des zones humides dont les communautés d'oiseaux d'eau, sans protection, auraient probablement connu de fortes difficultés d'ajustement thermique au cours des prochaines décennies. Cela met en évidence la pertinence de l'emplacement des aires protégées existantes qui pourront faciliter de manière efficace l'adaptation thermique des communautés d'oiseaux d'eau au réchauffement climatique futur. Cependant, nous avons également identifié 490 sites à risque et ne bénéficiant d'aucun statut de protection, dont 32 sites d'importance internationale pour les oiseaux d'eau, ce qui souligne la nécessité de renforcer le réseau d'aires protégées méditerranéen dans ces sites en priorité.
de Christian Perennou, Laura Dami
2022, 48Wintering waterbirds in North Africa 1990-2017 (2022)
de Mohamed Dakki, Geneviève Robin, Marie Suet, Abdeljebbar Qninba, Mohammed A. El Agbani, Asmaâ Ouassou, Rhimou El Hamoumi, Hichem Azafzaf, Wed A. L. Ibrahim, Khaled Etayeb, et al.
Wadden Sea Flyway Initiative p/a CWSS. 2022, 63-67
In North Africa, waterbird counts have been carried out since the 1960s but only became regular in the 1980s. However, the lack of stable funding, of suitable optical equipment, of a stable and reliable national network of counters in the five countries, and of facilities to cover large areas and move from one site to another, meant that surveys never covered all the sites and were not really carried out regularly. It was with the setting up of the Mediterranean Waterbirds Network in 2012 that a certain regularity of counts was established, with financial and technical support, and with the development of the Medwaterbirds database. This database contains 36,436,391 records but suffers from over 60% missing data for 1990-2017. In order to accommodate this missing data issue, a new imputation method, LORI, was applied to the Medwaterbirds data set using multiple site- and/or year-specific covariates. North African trends for 16 species were assessed and discussed with respect to the corresponding trends at the international level (AEWA CSR 8).
Because the issue of missing data is an acute one in ecological monitoring, we argue that our modelling tool could be useful for many studies on wildlife. The joint work with other Mediterranean countries, the possible monitoring of breeding birds in the Mediterranean, and synchronous counts with the East Atlantic Flyway countries could all be considered as lines of action to improve these analyses, but also their interpretation in relation to the status of populations.
de Nadège Popoff, Elie Gaget, Arnaud Béchet, Laura Dami, Pierre Defos Du Rau, Ilse Geijzendorffer, Anis Guelmami, Jean-Yves Mondain-Monval, Christian Perennou, Marie Suet, et al.
In Biodiversity and conservation, 30 (July, 2021), 19
En ligne : link.springer.com[...]
The Mediterranean Basin is a biodiversity hotspot. Wetlands make a key contribution to this status, but many of them remain outside the Ramsar network fifty years after the establishment of the Ramsar Convention. Here we evaluate the extent to which the Mediterranean Ramsar network covers wetlands of international importance for wintering waterbirds using the Ramsar Convention criteria 2 (species of conservation concern), 5 (> 20,000 waterbirds) and 6 (1% of a population). These criteria were applied to 4186 sites in 24 Mediterranean countries using counts of 145 wintering waterbird species from 1991 to 2017. We identified 161 sites of international importance for waterbirds that have not yet been declared as Ramsar sites, which could be added to the 180 current Mediterranean Ramsar sites established based on waterbird criteria (criteria 5 and/or 6). Among these sites, a subset of 32 very important sites reached double the required level for at least one criterion and 95 were not protected by any site conservation status. Coastal wetlands represented half of the Ramsar gap for waterbirds. We identified that an additional 1218 monitored sites could be provisionally considered as internationally important and thus require more survey efforts to assess their status. This study highlights a lack of participation of the Mediterranean countries to build the Ramsar network for wetland protection. Our results should help policymakers and managers to prioritize future Ramsar site designation, notably in the Middle East and Western European region where important gaps were identified.Imputation of incomplete large-scale monitoring count data via penalized estimation
de Mohamed Dakki, Geneviève Robin, Marie Suet, Abdeljebbar Qninba, Mohammed A. El Agbani, Asmaâ Ouassou, Rhimou El Hamoumi, Hichem Azafzaf, Sami Rebah, Claudia Feltrup‐Azafzaf, et al.
In Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 12(6) (April, 2021)
En ligne : besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com[...]
In biodiversity monitoring, large datasets are becoming more and more widely available and are increasingly used globally to estimate species trends and conservation status. These large-scale datasets challenge existing statistical analysis methods, many of which are not adapted to their size, incompleteness and heterogeneity. The development of scalable methods to impute missing data in incomplete large-scale monitoring datasets is crucial to balance sampling in time or space and thus better inform conservation policies. We developed a new method based on penalized Poisson models to impute and analyse incomplete monitoring data in a large-scale framework. The method allows parameterization of (a) space and time factors, (b) the main effects of predictor covariates, as well as (c) space–time interactions. It also benefits from robust statistical and computational capability in large-scale settings. The method was tested extensively on both simulated and real-life waterbird data, with the findings revealing that it outperforms six existing methods in terms of missing data imputation errors. Applying the method to 16 waterbird species, we estimated their long-term trends for the first time at the entire North African scale, a region where monitoring data suffer from many gaps in space and time series. This new approach opens promising perspectives to increase the accuracy of species-abundance trend estimations. We made it freely available in the r package ‘lori’ (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lori) and recommend its use for large-scale count data, particularly in citizen science monitoring programmes.
de Laura Dami, Elie Gaget
Arles (FRA) : Tour du Valat, 2021, 16
En ligne : mega.nz[...]
de Laura Dami, Elie Gaget
Arles (FRA) : Tour du Valat, 2021, 16
En ligne : mega.nz[...]
de Elie Gaget, I. Le Viol, D. Pavón-Jordán, V. Cazalis, Christian Kerbiriou, Frédéric Jiguet, Nadège Popoff, Laura Dami, Jean-Yves Mondain-Monval, Pierre Defos du Rau, et al.
In Biological Conservation, 243 (March, 2020), 108485
En ligne : www.sciencedirect.com[...]
Although biological conservation is based on international agreements, its effectiveness depends on how countries implement such recommendations as effective conservation tools. The Ramsar Convention is the oldest international treaty for wetland and waterbird conservation, establishing the world's largest network of protected areas. However, since it does not constitute any binding measure, its effectiveness in protecting wintering waterbird populations at an international scale has been questioned. Here, we use long-term (1991–2012) count data to assess the effectiveness of the Ramsar Convention in the Mediterranean Basin. We compared abundance and temporal trends of 114 waterbird species between 251 Ramsar wetlands and 3486 non-Ramsar wetlands. We found that the Ramsar network is critical for wintering waterbirds, concentrating nearly half of all waterbirds counted in the Mediterranean Basin in only 7% of monitored wetlands. Waterbird trends followed a northwest-southeast gradient, with a population decrease in the East. A significant and positive Ramsar effect on population trends was only found for the species of higher conservation concern in the Maghreb, particularly when a management plan was implemented. The Ramsar Convention was previously used on very important wetlands for waterbirds in Southern Europe, but is now an underused conservation tool. Our study suggests weaknesses in the use of Ramsar as an effective conservation tool in most of the Mediterranean Basin. However, the Ramsar Convention effectiveness to enhance waterbird populations in the Maghreb should encourage strengthening the Ramsar Convention. It should be done particularly in countries with limited environmental agreements and by systematic implementation of management plans.
Article impact statement
Identification of the regional disparities in the Ramsar Convention effectiveness to enhance waterbird populations across the Mediterranean Basin.Réseaux : confiance et respect des besoins
de Laura Dami
In Espaces naturels, 59 (Juil-Sept 2017), 35-35
Comment avoir une dynamique durable pour une base de données internationales ? Etre attentif aux besoins de chacun… Le rôle de l'animation est essentiel.
de Laura Dami, R.E. Bennetts, Heinz Hafner
2006
de Laura Dami
[S.l.] : Tesi sperimentale di laurea: scienze naturali: Facolta di scienze mat fis nat. Universita degli studi di Pavia, 2000, *62p 25fig 1tabl phot coulCenso de las aves acuáticas en invierno Mediterranean Waterbirds Network
de Blas Molina, Laura Dami
26-31
En ligne : mega.nz[...]
SEO/BirdLife has been working on censuses of wintering waterbirds since the early years of the organisation. It is one of the main activities in which many of the amateurs and ornithologists who developed their interest in birds and their conservation in those days took part, and it continues as another Citizen Science activity.
