The South African National Vegetation Database: History, development, applications, problems and future
Southern Africa has been recognised as one of the most interesting and important areas of the world from an ecological and evolutionary point of view. The establishment and development of the National Vegetation Database (NVD) of South Africa enabled South Africa to contribute to environmental plann...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Academy of Science of South Africa
2012-01-01
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| Series: | South African Journal of Science |
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| Online Access: | http://192.168.0.118/index.php/sajs/article/view/9772 |
| _version_ | 1818847535814410240 |
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| author | Michael Rutherford Ladislav Mucina Leslie Powrie |
| author_facet | Michael Rutherford Ladislav Mucina Leslie Powrie |
| author_sort | Michael Rutherford |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Southern Africa has been recognised as one of the most interesting and important areas of the world from an ecological and evolutionary point of view. The establishment and development of the National Vegetation Database (NVD) of South Africa enabled South Africa to contribute to environmental planning and conservation management in this floristically unique region. In this paper, we aim to provide an update on the development of the NVD since it was last described, near its inception, more than a decade ago. The NVD was developed using the Turboveg software environment, and currently comprises 46 697 vegetation plots (relevés) sharing 11 690 plant taxa and containing 968 943 species occurrence records. The NVD was primarily founded to serve vegetation classification and mapping goals but soon became recognised as an important tool in conservation assessment and target setting. The NVD has directly helped produce the National Vegetation Map, National Forest Type Classification, South African National Biodiversity Assessment and Forest Type Conservation Assessment. With further development of the NVD and more consistent handling of the legacy data (old data sets), the current limitations regarding certain types of application of the data should be significantly reduced. However, the use of the current NVD in multidisciplinary research has certainly not been fully explored. With the availability of new pools of well-trained vegetation surveyors, the NVD will continue to be purpose driven and serve the needs of biological survey in pursuit of sustainable use of the vegetation and flora resources of the southern African subcontinent. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-19T06:03:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-965c4e2a017e4161b6a2b2a69b53cee7 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1996-7489 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-19T06:03:00Z |
| publishDate | 2012-01-01 |
| publisher | Academy of Science of South Africa |
| record_format | Article |
| series | South African Journal of Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-965c4e2a017e4161b6a2b2a69b53cee72022-12-21T20:33:14ZengAcademy of Science of South AfricaSouth African Journal of Science1996-74892012-01-011081/2The South African National Vegetation Database: History, development, applications, problems and futureMichael Rutherford0Ladislav Mucina1Leslie Powrie2South African National Biodiversity InstituteCurtin UniversitySouth African National Biodiversity InstituteSouthern Africa has been recognised as one of the most interesting and important areas of the world from an ecological and evolutionary point of view. The establishment and development of the National Vegetation Database (NVD) of South Africa enabled South Africa to contribute to environmental planning and conservation management in this floristically unique region. In this paper, we aim to provide an update on the development of the NVD since it was last described, near its inception, more than a decade ago. The NVD was developed using the Turboveg software environment, and currently comprises 46 697 vegetation plots (relevés) sharing 11 690 plant taxa and containing 968 943 species occurrence records. The NVD was primarily founded to serve vegetation classification and mapping goals but soon became recognised as an important tool in conservation assessment and target setting. The NVD has directly helped produce the National Vegetation Map, National Forest Type Classification, South African National Biodiversity Assessment and Forest Type Conservation Assessment. With further development of the NVD and more consistent handling of the legacy data (old data sets), the current limitations regarding certain types of application of the data should be significantly reduced. However, the use of the current NVD in multidisciplinary research has certainly not been fully explored. With the availability of new pools of well-trained vegetation surveyors, the NVD will continue to be purpose driven and serve the needs of biological survey in pursuit of sustainable use of the vegetation and flora resources of the southern African subcontinent.http://192.168.0.118/index.php/sajs/article/view/9772conservation targetsdata combinationsecoinformaticslocality confidencespecies biasTurboveg |
| spellingShingle | Michael Rutherford Ladislav Mucina Leslie Powrie The South African National Vegetation Database: History, development, applications, problems and future South African Journal of Science conservation targets data combinations ecoinformatics locality confidence species bias Turboveg |
| title | The South African National Vegetation Database: History, development, applications, problems and future |
| title_full | The South African National Vegetation Database: History, development, applications, problems and future |
| title_fullStr | The South African National Vegetation Database: History, development, applications, problems and future |
| title_full_unstemmed | The South African National Vegetation Database: History, development, applications, problems and future |
| title_short | The South African National Vegetation Database: History, development, applications, problems and future |
| title_sort | south african national vegetation database history development applications problems and future |
| topic | conservation targets data combinations ecoinformatics locality confidence species bias Turboveg |
| url | http://192.168.0.118/index.php/sajs/article/view/9772 |
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