What is the NVS databank?

The NVS databank

The National Vegetation Survey Databank (NVS) is a physical archive and computer databank containing records from approximately 77,000 vegetation survey plots--including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS provides a unique record, spanning more than 50 years, of indigenous and exotic plants in New Zealand's terrestrial ecosystems, from Northland to Stewart Island and the Kermadec and Chatham islands. A broad range of habitats are covered, with special emphasis on indigenous forests and grasslands.

The physical archive includes plot sheets, maps, and photographs from many years of vegetation surveys. Purpose-built software for entering, validating and summarising data is available.

The original surveys were conducted by the New Zealand Forest Service, Department of Lands & Survey, and the DSIR Botany Division. Ongoing surveys and research by the Department of Conservation, regional councils, universities, provate consultants and Landcare Research are constantly providing new data to NVS. Such widely sourced information collated in one databank is part of the value of NVS to New Zealand. At the same time, the interests of data providers are protected through written agreements that determine access rights to specific datasets within NVS. For further detail see Wiser et al, 2001 (253KB Acrobat file for screen viewing), also available as Wiser et al, 2001 (8MB Acrobat file for printing) and a recent PowerPoint presentation (2.2MB file ).

Value of NVS information

Data within NVS support reporting requirements for the Convention on Biological Diversity, Framework Convention on Climate Change, Resource Management Act, State of Environment, and the Montreal Process. They also assist resource management and ecological restoration. Historical information in NVS has significance in enabling New Zealand to address issues of current concern that were unforeseen at the time of data collection. They include assessing the impacts of climate change on indigenous ecosystems, the storage of carbon in indigenous ecosystems, and setting restoration goals in areas since degraded. Recent examples of uses of NVS include:

• Testing Metabolic Energy Model predictions of growth-size scaling relationships of woody species (Russo et al. 2007)

• Demonstrating how invasive rats can promote ecosystem carbon sequestration (Wardle et al. 2007)

• Modelling species distributions (Phillips & Dudick 2008)

• Illustrating how matrix vegetation influences native and exotic species composition on habitat islands (Wiser & Buxton 2008)

• Understanding underlying ecological concepts (Coomes et al. 2003; Lloyd et al. 2003)

• Design of a system for monitoring carbon in New Zealand's indigenous forests and shrublands (Coomes et al. 2002)

• Demonstrating invasion impacts of exotic woody weeds (Bellingham et al. 2005)

• Describing threats to endangered species (Rogers & Walker 2005)

• Determining damage and response to mountain beech forests by deer (Husheer & Robertson 2005), which underpins management decisions for deer control in these forests

• Reporting conservation performance (Allen et al. 2003)

• Showing benefits of management actions (Urlich & Brady 2005)

Reference lists of some recent published and unpublished information using NVS data

What kinds of vegetation data does NVS contain?

1. General survey data, from plots that are usually not permanently marked. These data include reconnaissance descriptions ('Recces') and Protected Natural Areas data. They are suitable for vegetation description, studies of species distributions, and studies needing only coarse measurement of changes in vegetation. More than 57,000 survey plots in NVS comprise:

• point-based compositional (and usually) structural description of vegetation
• relative abundance in fixed structural tiers (usually included)
• location information (80% have NZMS grid references)

Examples of uses:

Vegetation description, detecting biodiversity trends, studying weed invasions, and relating species distribution to environment

2. Permanent plot data where fixed area plots or transects have been established, and the vegetation has been measured precisely (e.g. tagged trees, sapling and seedling counts, species lists). Fixed area plots may be circular, square quadrat, rectangular, or cruciform. Assessments of about 19,000 permanent plots in NVS are ideal for monitoring vegetation changes and the effects of management.

• Nearly all follow standard methods, e.g. in forests all trees within a fixed quadrat area (usually 400 m²) are permanently tagged to allow repeat measurements.
• Most forest plots contain permanently marked seedling subplots to determine changes in seedling and herbaceous composition with time.
• Most are along objectively located transects.
• More than 80% have NZMS grid references (for forest plots, >95%).

Examples of potential uses:

• Forest plots: growth, mortality, and recruitment of tree species, changes in structure and composition.
• Grassland and shrubland plots: change in structure and composition.

Ongoing developments and NVS work programme

Active development of the NVS database and website is an ongoing effort to encourage more ready access to data, provide easier means of entering and depositing data, ensure that data stored in NVS meet set quality standards, and enable integration with other databases. Recent developments include

Who funds NVS?

In 1998 the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology accorded NVS the status of a Nationally Significant database, and since 1999 has provided funding for its upkeep and maintenance. Additional funding for incorporation of new datasets archived alongside NVS data is provided by the TFBIS (Terrestrial and Freshwater Biodiversity Information System) Programme, Department of Conservation, Public Good Science Fund research programmes, the Ministry for the Environment and other agencies.

Future Development of NVS

Ongoing developments focus on three major areas

• State-of-the-art data management

• Synthesis of data for research

• Outreach and capacity building

More broadly, a major goal of biodiversity informatics is to link information systems together, to allow increasingly broad and novel data syntheses. Our efforts in these areas are described more specifically on the NVS IO page of the Ecosystem Resilience OBI website.Our directions have been formulated over the last five years based upon frequent involvement of diverse end-users. Our researchers have an established history of collaboration between scientists, information specialists, developers, end-users, and data providers. Landcare Research was contracted by the TFBIS (Terrestrial and Freshwater Biodiversity Information System Programme) to determine how various users of data can more easily enter data into, and retrieve data from, nationally significant databases that may be relevant to the conservation of biodiversity. The National Vegetation Survey Databank (NVS) was used as an example. To set the directions for future developments of NVS, we assessed the needs of different types of biodiversity practitioner for data entry and retrieval from the databank using a questionnaire and interviews. We devised appropriate technological solutions based on our previous experience, knowledge gained from interactions with those attempting to solve similar problems internationally in vegetation data banking and from a pilot study on data management using Internet computing technology. Our findings and recommendations were discussed at a workshop held at Landcare, Lincoln in Feb. 2004.

The TFBIS NVS user needs report (1.4MB Acrobat file) summarizes our findings and outlines our recommendations for the future development of NVS.

Adding value to NVS: development of software tools for the analysis of vegetation data

Summary

Landcare Research (Lincoln) was contracted by the Terrestrial and Freshwater Biodiversity Information System Programme (TFBIS) to survey the data analysis skills of NVS end-users and review the data analysis tools available to them. This project was initiated following a 2003/04 TFBIS-funded survey of biodiversity practitioners which identified impediments to retrieving, depositing and analysing data, and recommended a high-level system architecture to overcome these issues (Burrows et al. 2004).

Objectives

• To survey NVS end-users from the Department of Conservation, Landcare Research and other institutions supporting biodiversity practitioners, who work in a range of positions so as to assess their software and vegetation analysis skills, and what tools they require from NVS.
• To examine existing software that could be recommended by NVS, or linked to and developed alongside NVS.
• To seek feedback and peer-review from the surveyed end-users on a draft report.

The TFBIS NVS adding value report (432MB Acrobat file) summarizes our findings and outlines our recommendations for the future development of NVS.

Copyright statement

If you retrieve data from the National Vegetation Survey Databank, you will be issued with the following copyright statement:

© Landcare Research 2005

All data and information contained in these files are copyright and subject to license agreements. They are the property of Landcare Research, the Department of Conservation and other registered providers (the Owners) and shall not be disclosed to any third party without the prior written consent of Landcare Research, who act on behalf of the Owners; nor shall data and information provided under this Agreement be used for any purpose other than the purpose described in the appropriate License. You may seek the permission of the Owners (through Landcare Research) to use the data and information for other purposes. Permission to use the data and information for other purposes will not be unreasonably withheld. Such alternative uses will, however, be the subject of a separate agreement.