Another useful field accompanying records in NatureCounts is SamplingEventIdentifier. The value in this field is a combination of letters and numbers — the exact structure of which may vary by project — which indicates a unique sampling event. A sampling event may be a point count, a transect survey, a stop within a route-based survey, or any other defined sampling effort.

All records collected during a single sampling event will share a sampling event identifier. Logically, they will also share common values of location, date, time, effort, and protocol.

Unlike global unique identifiers, sampling event identifiers are unique within individual datasets but not necessarily unique within NatureCounts. Care must be taken when working with multiple datasets, as duplicate sampling event identifiers may exist.

Photo by Kris Cu

Next section: Location Fields