There is a disconnect between the production of freshwater biodiversity data and its application to effective conservation policy in South Africa. This disconnect is the result of system issues in decision-making processes, limitations in technology to streamline the delivery of policy-relevant products, and a lack of statistical ecology and biodiversity informatics skills. The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) has been a JRS partner on various collaborations focused on biodiversity data mobilization, capacity building, and catalyzing engagement and action on biodiversity informatics, including the development of a Freshwater Biodiversity Information System (FBIS) with the Freshwater Research Centre (FRC).

SANBI’s current work with the University of Cape Town Centre for Statistics in Ecology, the Environment and Conservation, FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, Seascape Belgium, Sol Plaatje University School of Natural and Applied Sciences, and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences aims to collect, curate, and analyze critical freshwater bird datasets. Two of these citizen science-based datasets, the Coordinated Waterbird Counts (CWAC) project and the Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP), are rich in detail but are not being fully applied in ecosystem conservation and management. SANBI and their partners have identified a need for automated statistical workflows and data visualizations that can bridge the gap between data users and decision makers. This project will improve and leverage the CWAC and SABAP datasets through development of a data analysis pipeline and web application that can produce policy-friendly products. Partners Seascape Belgium, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Sol Plaatje University, and UCT will work with SANBI to develop this comprehensive freshwater biodiversity data-to-decision pipeline that will better predict, understand, and manage environmental pressures and respond directly to the government’s objectives and policy needs.

SANBI will develop a modular freshwater biodiversity date-to-decision pipeline that automates the production of indicators and displays these outputs on a user-driven, scalable web application. This will ensure sufficient statistical modelling capacity and coordination to understand the challenges and threats facing freshwater biodiversity in South Africa and produce the data products required for reporting on South Africa’s commitments to international conventions. The beginning of this project will involve assembling, engaging, and linking key stakeholders to help define user needs. Stakeholder workshops will help determine the indicators needed for reporting with outputs first tested at pilot sites, including at least one pilot site in Kenya. Regular engagement and consultations with colleagues from other aligned JRS-funded initiatives in South Africa, including a concurrent SANBI project and projects with the Association for Water and Rural Development (AWARD) and FRC,, will help guide this project, identify potential synergies, and increase efficiency and efficacy. The pipeline and web application will be integrated into SANBI’s existing hardware and software systems and be designed to be interoperable with SANBI’s National Biodiversity Information System (NBIS) and other platforms developed by partners in South Africa. Training and capacity building activities will ensure long-term sustainability beyond the duration of this project.

1. A modular data analysis pipeline for converting raw data into decision-quality analytics.
2. A full-stack wetland and waterbird web application.
3. Three policy-relevant indicators, time-series status and trends charts, and spatial data taken up by project partners.
4. Project reports and documents covering pilot sites, workshops, user interface, best practice guidelines, and project design.
5. Estimated trends in population size from CWAC datasets.
6. Estimated changes in occupancy from SABAP datasets.
7. Water birds trend report incorporated into at least one of the following: Bioregional Plan, State of Biodiversity Report, RAMSAR Report, or African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) report.
8. Communication materials, including conference presentations, scientific publications, newsletters, and social media.

The completed and operational integrated water bird and wetland habitat observation and information system will establish a user-driven process for sustaining freshwater biodiversity data production and effective delivery of policy-relevant outputs. It will streamline domestic and international reporting on freshwater biodiversity status and trends and become a key information source for decisions affecting wetland ecosystem management and associated species conservation. An increase in citizen-science data submissions and use is also expected. Collectively, these tools will support species red-listing assessments for birds and reporting at the state, national, and international level.

This project focuses on solving specific, high priority biodiversity conservation issues in South Africa, but due to the system’s modular approach, it will be simple to add additional biodiversity datasets and to scale and apply to other countries and regions. Through this process, partners will increase their technical capacity regarding wetland bird data and gain knowledge on how to best design a web application to be compatible across multiple platforms.

Nancy Job is a wetland ecologist with more than 20 years of field and implementation experience. Prior to working at SANBI, she was an associate of the Mondi Wetlands Programme, collaborating with provincial and national government to initiate a long-term, catchment-focused approach that prioritized wetland information as a foundation for the improved understanding and protection of wetlands. She has also worked for the Botanical Society Conservation Unit, mainstreaming systematic biodiversity conservation plans into municipal and provincial land-use planning and decision-making systems.