Observation.org is a worldwide platform of

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

citizen scientists The term citizen science (synonymous to terms like community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is research conducted with participation from the general public, or am ...

, and

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

s to collect, validate and share

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

observations. Observation.org may be accessed via its website or from its

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...

lications like ObsIdentify. The Observation.org database holds 233 million nature observations and 79 million photos. It is published and hosted in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

under Dutch and European law by the non-profit foundation Observation International.

History

The history of Observation International started in 2003 with the website Waarneming.nl. In 2017 Waarneming.nl counted 50 million observations. Waarneming.be followed in 2008. There were 5000 daily visitors and a total of 1.5 million after 5 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic location data of observations were hidden to prevent gathering of bird watchers.

Quality assurance

Quality assurance measures on Observation.org is managed by established species experts responsible for curating the reference set of observations. Automated validation, supported by artificial intelligence, uses this reference set to aid validators in managing the extensive dataset. However, human experts retain final authority in all validation matters.

Open data

The observations that have been approved are shared as

open data Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...

Global Biodiversity Information Facility The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around th ...

(GBIF). The dataset comprises approximately 82 million occurrences, 19 million annotated photos and 69,000 annotated sound recordings. Observation.org is the third largest publisher of the world on GBIF.

Use of Observation.org data

As of December 2023, more than 1,700 research results have been published that cite the Observation.org dataset on GBIF, often in the fields of ecology, conservation, and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. This research includes for example the discovery of new species for a country , documentation of changes in behavior, monitoring invasive alien species, finding causes of local extinction and tracking

zoonoses A zoonosis (; plural zoonoses) or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen (an infectious agent, such as a virus, bacterium, parasite, fungi, or prion) that can jump from a non-human vertebrate to a human. When h ...

such as

Avian influenza Avian influenza, also known as avian flu or bird flu, is a disease caused by the influenza A virus, which primarily affects birds but can sometimes affect mammals including humans. Wild aquatic birds are the primary host of the influenza A viru ...

. Other examples are the integration of nature data into national research programmes and European biodiversity projects. The annotated Observation.org photos are used to train automatic species recognition models. Users of Observation.org regularly participate in Bioblitzes to collaboratively collect nature observations. Examples of these Bioblitzes are the City Nature Challenge and the Biomaratón de Otoño in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Public Perception

* The

UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH, also known by the former name CEH) is a centre for excellence in environmental science across water, land and air. The organisation has a long history of investigating, monitoring and modelling envir ...

recommends the app ObsIdentify beside others for detection of alien species. * As apps for identification NatureSpot recommends Seek and ObsIdentify. * The

Sussex Wildlife Trust The Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) is a conservation charity which aims to protect natural life in Sussex. It was founded in 1961 and is one of 46 The Wildlife Trusts partnership, wildlife trusts across the UK and the Isle of Man and Alderney. As ...

finds that ObsIdentify works particularly well with invertebrates. * ObsIdentify,

iNaturalist iNaturalist is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. iNaturalist may be accessed via its web ...

, Seek, iRecord and Picture This are the favorite identifying apps for the Natural History Society of Northumbria (NHSN) *

Birdwatch (magazine) ''Birdwatch'' (ISSN 0967-1870) is a British monthly magazine for birdwatchers, established in 1992 by Solo Publishing. It is distributed by subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a rec ...

UK draws a positive conclusion after testing ObsIdentify. It is easy to use and provides a lot of information.

International names

In the

, Observation.org is primarily known as Waarneming.nl. In the Dutch Caribbean, the name Observation.org is used. In

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

, the platform is primarily known as Waarnemingen.be (

Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...

) and Observations.be (

Wallonia Wallonia ( ; ; or ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region, Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the c ...

References

External links

*
GBIF page for Observation.org
{{CitizenScienceNavBox Biodiversity databases Citizen science