ABV - Common breeding birds in Flanders, Belgium (post 2016)

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 20,234 records.

2 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

Version	Published on	Records	Change summary	DOI handle	Last modified by
1.12	2025-02-03 10:30:31	20,234	Adjusting metadata and Humboldt extension		Stijn Cooleman
1.11	2025-02-03 09:10:49	23,422	None provided		Dimitri Brosens
1.10	2023-12-04 13:27:07	17,799	yearly update		Dimitri Brosens

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How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Piesschaert F, Vermeersch G, Brosens D, Westra T, Desmet P, Feys S, Van de Poel S, Pollet M, Cooleman S (2025). ABV - Common breeding birds in Flanders, Belgium (post 2016). Version 1.12. Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). Samplingevent dataset. https://ipt.inbo.be/resource?r=meetnetten-abv2-occurrences&v=1.12

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 99047b1e-ee53-4053-ba69-2e28eaaa45d9.  Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Belgian Biodiversity Platform.

Keywords

Samplingevent; breeding birds; monitoring

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

Flanders, Belgium

Taxonomic Coverage

Aves

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

Meetnetten.be is a suite of monitoring networks through which the Flemish Government is collecting high-quality information on 65 priority plant and animal species. These are species on which Flanders has to report to Europe in the framework of the Habitats and Birds Directives, but also other species that are important for the Flemish nature policy.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

Point counts of birds are standardized according to a standardized observation protocol allocated in 1200 randomly selected 1x1 km UTM grid squares in Flanders. 6 points were randomly assigned to each grid square. All six points in a square have to be counted on the same day, three times in a year, in predefined periods (DD/MM): 01/03-15/04, 16/04-31/05 and 01/06-15/07. Subsequent counts of the same points in different periods should lie apart for at least two weeks. Each point has to be counted for 5 minutes. This is a 90 minutes per km square in a year counting effort. Information in over 5,000 1×1 km UTM squares was already available from the atlas of breeding birds in Flanders (https://www.gbif.org/dataset/81c5a091-6e94-40db-a2a4-48f4de42d410): that atlas (2000-2002) was based on territory mapping in 5×5 km UTM-squares with additional information collected in a subset of 8 1×1 km grid squares (Vermeersch et al., 2004). So, we chose that grid as a basis for the new census. The grid was then randomly stratified over 6 habitat types (farmland, woodland, urban, suburban, heathland and marshland). The voluntary network is based on the existing network in the BBV-project (special breeding birds). Approximately 40 regional coordinators were found throughout Flanders. The volunteer network is maintained by Natuurpunt.

Method step description:

1. Researchers from INBO and Natuurpunt Studie define and document the appropriate sampling protocol for the target species.
2. Fieldwork is planned and coordinated by Natuurpunt Studie, using https://meetnetten.be.
3. Data are collected in the field by specialized volunteers, using the predefined sampling protocol.
4. Volunteers enter the collected data in https://meetnetten.be.
5. A custom SQL view is created in the meetnetten.be database to map the original data to Darwin Core as an event core, occurrence extension and Humboldt extension.
6. The Darwin Core views are connected to the INBO IPT and documented with metadata.
7. The dataset is published and registered with GBIF.

Bibliographic Citations

1. Glenn Vermeersch, Hannes Ledegen, Simon Feys, (2017) Methodehandleiding bij het project ‘Algemene Broedvogelmonitoring Vlaanderen (ABV)’
2. Devos, K., Vermeersch, G., Onkelinx, T., T'Jollyn, F., & Lewylle, I. (2016). Het project Algemene Broedvogels Vlaanderen (ABV): een nieuwe update van populatietrends (2007-2016). Vogelnieuws : ornithologische nieuwsbrief van het Instituut voor Natuur- en Bosonderzoek, 27, 28-31.
3. Onkelinx, T., Dochy, O., Vermeersch, G., Devos, K. (2024). Trends op basis van de Algemene Broedvogelmonitoring Vlaanderen (ABV). Technisch achtergrondrapport voor de periode 2007-2023. (Rapporten van het Instituut voor Natuur- en Bosonderzoek; 15). https://doi.org/10.21436/inbor.102669823

Additional Metadata