Les comptages d'oiseaux d'eau hivernant en France : Actualisation des connaissances, effectifs moyens, critères numériques d'importance internationale et nationale

Winter waterbird censuses are an essential tool to evaluate the quality of wetlands. After presenting the criteria currently used in the selection of internationally important wetlands (Ramsar convention) the authors define severol important notions : wetland, site, water bird, population, number. Recent advances in knowledge, thanks to the most recent synthesis, allows us to put forward new criteria for the selection of nationally and internationally important sites for water birds using the east Atlantic migration routes.