The future of wader monitoring on Europe’s non-estuarine coasts

Estimates of the sizes of wader populations need to be regularly updated as they provide the basis for flyway and site conservation, and likewise information on population trends is required to be able to identify priorities for action aimed at conserving these species’ populations. Determining population estimates and trends entails the need for a more systematic approach to the survey of the internationally important numbers of waders that spend the non-breeding season on Europe’s non-estuarine coasts. Here, we describe various approaches that can be used to gather the data required to generate population estimates and provide information on population trends, and we make the plea that the methods used to collect data across national boundaries should whenever possible generate directly comparable data. This is important as only with such data will it be possible to detect how wader populations are changing across their wintering quarters and to determine the broad-scale factors (for example, climate change) that might be driving any observed changes.