“Dear all, Does anyone know of any concrete, “model” wetland in the world which would have a comprehensive, integrated monitoring system (e.g., a wetland observatory), of not o­nly its natural heritage but also human activities/pressures, land-use, etc… whose indicators/ parameters would not just be a haphazard collection of “what has been collected so far – by chance – by various persons/ institutions”, but result from a real planning based o­n indicators addressing key management issues at that wetland; …and which would not be purely research-oriented, but a real management tool, used by local managers? Any synthetic reference, providing indications especially o­n the selection process used for defining the indicators, the number & nature of parameters, the role-sharing between all those involved, etc. would be most gratefully received!

NOTE: We have started to compile all the monitoring programmes existing for a test wetland (the Camargue, southern France) and arrive at 1600+ parameters monitored by over 40 organisations – 80% of them being water quality data for the delta’s major river. This is the “haphazard collection” mentioned above… but we aim at moving beyond that! Thank you in anticipation, Christian.” — Dr Christian Perennou, Chef de Projet / Project Leader, perennou@tourduvalat.org Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat, Le Sambuc, 13200 Arles – France. 

Source: website of the Ramsar ConventiON

Updated on 9/15/2006 3:19:05 PM.