The observatorio
The open data window of the Amazon Waters Alliance
Every day, in rivers, lakes, markets, and ports across Amazonia, someone records a fish. A fisher notes their catch after returning from the fishing trip, a community monitor documents a landing, a technical team surveys a market. Each of those records, however small it may seem, is a piece for understanding how the planet’s largest aquatic ecosystem is changing. The Amazon Waters Observatory brings those pieces together and makes them available to everyone.
The Observatory is the open data window of the Amazon Waters Alliance: the place where the information the Alliance generates and stewards becomes public, searchable, and reusable. Today its main component is the ICTIO system, which brings together fisheries monitoring data from the basin. Those data come from participatory and community monitoring, citizen science programs, and the monitoring carried out by the more than 30 organizations and institutions that make up the Alliance. In the future, the window will open to other components the Alliance monitors and studies, such as water quality.
Opening data does not mean exposing those who generate it. That is why Observatory information is published aggregated at the sub-basin level, without exact coordinates, to protect sensitive sites and resources, and is anonymized when needed to protect personal data. At the same time, the Alliance works so that the local organizations that produce the information are recognized and cited in every use of their data. Protection and recognition go hand in hand.
Why monitor fisheries in Amazonia?
Fish are the foundation of food, livelihoods, and culture for millions of people in the Amazon basin. Some species, such as the large migratory catfish, travel thousands of kilometers between the Andes and the estuary, connecting countries and ecosystems. Knowing which species are fished, where, when, and in what quantity makes it possible to detect changes in time, support management and conservation decisions, and strengthen the voice of fishing communities in those decisions.
The Amazon Waters Alliance
The Amazon Waters Alliance is a regional initiative that conceives the Amazon basin as a large interconnected aquatic ecosystem that depends on its forests to maintain its integrity. More than 30 organizations from the basin’s countries work together to conserve its rivers, wetlands, and fisheries, with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) as Technical Secretariat. The Alliance’s strategy, programs, partners, and broader context are on its website.
Partners
The Observatory is built collaboratively with organizations, institutions, and Alliance partners that contribute data, research, and knowledge about Amazonian rivers and ecosystems. This collaboration network helps consolidate diverse, up-to-date information to strengthen analysis, decision-making, and conservation actions in Amazonia.
