Taking stock of land-based citizen science cetacean data sets: regional integration and comparative analysis to deliver policy-relevant results. An independent workshop held alongside the 2019 World Marine Mammal Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

The main purpose of this workshop was to look at ways to make the best use of coastal cetacean sightings data in monitoring and research, for example to improve our knowledge about diversity, distribution, local abundance and habitat use of cetaceans, including the detection of temporal and spatial trends. This included consideration of ways to integrate different data sets to provide information at a larger scale, including possible common protocols and data formats to facilitate future integration.The workshop brought together data providers, analysts and data users, to share their knowledge and experience, and to discuss best practice in training, data collection, quality control and analysis. Discussions included consideration of standards and mechanisms to permit combination of data from different sources, and ways in which citizen science data on cetacean sightings could support conservation and research.