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    DOI10.15468/smdvdo

    Occurrence dataset Registered June 27, 2017

    Waarnemingen.be - Non-native plant occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium

    Published by Natuurpunt
    7 authors
    www.waarnemingen.be
    LicenceCC BY-NC 4.0

    Description

    Waarnemingen.be - Non-native plant occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium is a species occurrence dataset published by Natuurpunt and described (v1.2) in Swinnen et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.3391/bir.2018.7.3.17). The dataset contains over 700,000 occurrences of non-native plant, algae and fungi species, recorded by volunteers (citizen scientists), mainly since 2008. The occurrences are derived from the database http://www.waarnemingen.be, hosted at the nature conservation NGO Natuurpunt in collaboration with Stichting Natuurinformatie. Standardized information regarding the occurrence's sex, reproductiveCondition, behavior, occurrenceRemarks, and samplingProtocol is included as well.

    Generalized and/or withheld information: since dataset v1.4 location information is no longer generalized to grid cells, but provided as the original decimalLatitude/Longitude and coordinateUncertaintyInMeters for all occurrences. Observer name, toponyms, and photographs are not included in the published dataset, but are known in the source database.

    To allow anyone to use this dataset, we have released the data to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). We would appreciate however, if you read and follow these norms for data use (http://www.natuurpunt.be/normen-voor-datagebruik) and provide a link to the original dataset (https://doi.org/10.15468/smdvdo) whenever possible. If you use these data for a scientific paper, please cite the dataset following the applicable citation norms and/or consider us for co-authorship. We are always interested to provide more information or know how you have used the data, so please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or natuurdata@natuurpunt.be.

    The publication of this dataset is supported by INBO and funded by Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) as part of the Belgian contribution to LifeWatch.

    Geographic scope

    Description

    Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region. These regions are situated in the north of Belgium and cover an area of 13,522 km² and 162 km² respectively (13,684 km² in total or 45% of the Belgian territory). Flanders is largely covered by agricultural land and urban areas while the Brussels Capital Region is mainly urban.

    Latitude
    From 50.67 to 51.51
    Longitude
    From 2.53 to 5.94

    Temporal scope

    verbatim
    1862-now

    Taxonomic scope

    Description

    The dataset contains all plant, algae and fungi taxa recorded in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region which have the status naturalized, naturalizing, exotic, or incidental import in waarnemingen.be. This includes angiosperms (flowering plants), gymnosperms, ferns and allies, algae, mosses, lichens and fungi.

    Coverage
    PlantaeplantsFungimushroomsChromista

    Methodology

    Sampling

    The observations (species, date, location, observer) were recorded by volunteers (citizen scientists) at http://www.waarnemingen.be. The dataset also includes historical records and datasets imported in waarnemingen.be. The dataset is a mixture of presence-only data, checklists and monitoring data.

    Study extent

    See geographic coverage.

    Quality control

    Recorded data are constantly verified by a group of botanical experts (including professional botanists) taking collection specimens, the observer’s species knowledge, added photographs and known species list of locations into account. The validation procedure from waarnemingen.be consists of an interactive procedure in which observers can be asked for additional information by a team of validators, after which the validator manually adds a validation status. Records that are not manually validated are additionally checked by an automated validation procedure that takes into account the number of manually validated observations within a specified date and distance range. The validation status is indicated in the field identificationVerificationStatus.

    Method steps

    1. Not provided.

    Metrics

    Bibliography

    • Swinnen K, Vercayie D, Vanreusel W, Barendse R, Boers K, Bogaert J, Dekeukeleire D, Driessens G, Dupriez P, Jooris R, Steeman R, Van Asten K, Van Den Neucker T, Van Dorsselaer P, Van Vooren P, Wysmantel N, Gielen K, Desmet P, Herremans M, all working groups, species validators and recorders Waarnemingen.be (2018) Waarnemingen.be – Non-native plant and animal occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium. BioInvasions Records 7(3): 335–342. https://doi.org/10.3391/bir.2018.7.3.17
      Google Scholar

    Contacts

    GBIF registration

    Registration date
    June 27, 2017
    Metadata last modified
    August 06, 2025
    Publication date
    July 30, 2025
    Hosted by
    Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
    Installation
    INBO IPT
    Endpoints
    Darwin Core Archive
    EML
    Preferred identifier
    10.15468/smdvdo
    Alternative identifiers
    GBIF registration details

    Citation

    Vanreusel W, Barendse R, Steeman R, Gielen K, Swinnen K, Desmet P, Herremans M (2025). Waarnemingen.be - Non-native plant occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium. Version 1.167. Natuurpunt. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/smdvdo accessed via GBIF.org on 2025-08-06.