Dutch Wadden Sea - Research area

All available vegetation plotsa within the contour of LTSER Dutch Wadden Sea and for which permission was granted were extracted from the European Vegetation Archivehttp://euroveg.org/eva-database (EVA). EVA is an initiative of the European Vegetation Survey aimed at establishing and maintenance of a single data repository of vegetation-plot observations (i.e. records of plant taxon co-occurrence at particular sites, also called phytosociological relevés) from Europe and adjacent areas and to facilitate the use of these data for non-commercial purposes, mainly academic research and applications in nature conservation and ecological restoration. The initiative follows the EVA Data Property and Governance Rules. It closely cooperates with the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD), the Global Vegetation Database (sPlot) and the Plant Trait Database (TRY). Nomenclature of vascular plant species follows http://www.emplantbase.org/home.html and for all other species groups the NDFF Verspreidingsatlas https://www.verspreidingsatlas.nl/. As far as possible, vegetation plots were assigned to EUNIS habitat types (level 3). For major groups E (grassland), F (heath, scrub and tundra) and G (forest) the coding follows the revised classification that Wageningen Environmental Research carried through as commissioned by the European Environmental Agency https://www.eea.europa.eu/. Data were made available by Alterra, B-Ware, KWR, LMV, Marcel Horsthuis, Natuurmonumenten, Province of Groningen, Rijkswaterstaat (CIV, Delft) and Staatsbosbeheer. Organisations managing nature areas, like Natuurmonumenten and Staatsbosbeheer use vegetation plots to assess the status of the nature areas they protect. Rijkswaterstaat uses vegetation plot data to calibrate aerial photographs to create vegetation maps of the saltmarshes in the Netherlands as part of the trilateral monitoring of these saltmarshes http://www.waddensea-secretariat.org/monitoring-tmap/topics/salt-marshes.