Every January, thousands of volunteers across Asia and Australasia visit wetlands in their country and count waterbirds. This event is called the Asian Waterbird Census (AWC), which is part of a global waterbird monitoring programme, the International Waterbird Census (IWC), coordinated by Wetlands International. 

The AWC initiated in 1987 in the Indian subcontinent and has grown rapidly to cover the region of Asia, from Afghanistan eastwards to Japan, Southeast Asia and Australasia. It therefore includes the entire East Asian - Australasian flyway and a large part of the Central Asian flyway. The AWC runs parallel to other regional programmes of the International Waterbird Census of waterbirds in Africa, Europe, West Asia, the Neotropics and the Caribbean.

This website is the primary information resource for the AWC. For more information on the objectives, organisation, coverage, results and use of AWC count information, please see our Background Information page. Names, organisations and contact details of all the AWC national Coordinators can be found on the National Cooridinators page. Relevant documents, including counting/site forms and various reports are available to download on our AWC Documents page. On the AWC News page you can find the latest news from the AWC network as well as past editions of the AWC newsletter.

The recommended dates for the AWC counts in 2013 are Saturday 12 to Sunday 27, January 2013, covering 2 weeks and three weekends, when we should encourage you to count waterbirds. These dates are for guidance only and counts from any date in January are very welcome.

Kindly use the appropriate AWC Site and Count forms to report your observations and provide these through your national coordinators.