The annual waterbird census of Lac de Serre-Ponçon in the Hautes-Alpes department is part of an international operation involving 143 countries and led by Wetlands International, an organization based in the Netherlands. This project, initiated in 1967, aims to follow the geographic and numerical evolution of the waterbird populations and to define the importance of the wetlands that host them in winter. Some 25,000 sites are listed annually by the organization throughout the world.