The monitoring of waterbird populations represents an indispensable tool for obtaining the information necessary for the development of valid conservation policies for bird populations and their habitats. The objectives of the winter waterbird censuses, coordinated in Italy by the National Institute for Protection and Research Environmental (hereafter referred to as "ISPRA"), are: - annually establishing the size of the populations present in the month of January; - identifying variations in the size and distribution of populations; - determining the international and national importance of the various sites ;- contribute significantly to local, national and international efforts for the conservation of waterbirds and their habitats. The results of these censuses also feed into the database of Wetlands International (a global non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to the conservation of wetlands and their sustainable management), thus allowing analyzes on broader geographical scales, such as to understand the entire wintering area of the various populations and allow the identification of rankings of absolute importance of the sites, the global numerical trend of the populations and their state of conservation.
