NVS

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NVS

• New Zealand
• National Vegetation Survey

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What is NVS?

• NVS (National Vegetation Survey) New Zealands
  largest archive facility for plot-based
  vegetation data
• NVS is both a physical (field data sheets, maps,
  photographs) and electronic archive (database)

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NVS - coverage

• Best in grassland and indigenous forest
• Collection intensity has varied over 50 years
• 14 000 permanent and
• 52 000 relevé plots

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Who uses NVS?

• Four main types of user
• biodiversity management practitioners,
• researchers,
• database-to-database,
• users and policy developers and IT-level users.

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How is NVS used?

• Users rely on NVS as an archive and as a primary
  source of quantitative vegetation biodiversity
  data
• Traditional uses
• monitoring environmental change
• assessing and monitoring impacts of introduced
  animals
• inventory and description of plant communities
• New activities
• guiding the design of national-level biodiversity
  inventory and monitoring programmes
• providing empirical data for validating
  predictive models
• deriving carbon storage estimates.

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NVS data management

• NVS database consists of two distinct parts

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NVS data management

• NVS database consists of two distinct parts
• 1. Metadata for projects and datasets (gt3000)
• Databank organisation and management
• Search and locate datasets
• Assess suitability for use
• Constraints - Permissions
• Xml Schema Web delivery

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NVS data management

• NVS database consists of two distinct parts
• 1. Metadata for projects and datasets (gt 3000)
• 2. Plot-based vegetation survey data
• Mainly standardised surveys (20x20m plots)
• Plot/site descriptors
• Relevé, Repeat measures of individual trees,
  Understory composition
• Also a wide range of other data types collected
  by various means (ranks, CWD, browse, etc)
• Relational database Desktop management system
• (new system currently being developed)

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Metadata application
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Species present
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Species distribution
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Dataset request
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Plot vegetation application
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Sample methods
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Tree data
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Data model overview
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Future uses

• What do users want to do in the future
• Use NVS data in concert with Land Environments
  New Zealand classification (LENZ) to identify
  priority sites for conservation management
• Comparative analysis of vegetation communities in
  different regions of New Zealand
• Address monitoring requirements supporting a
  number of national and international reporting
  objectives, e.g. NZ Carbon Monitoring System,
  Montreal Process Indicator reporting, Natural
  Heritage Asset Management reporting
• Large-scale ecological analyses using pooled data
  at both national and global scales
• What they require
• Tools for entering data into a format suitable
  for NVS-specific analysis packages
• Formalised and automatic mechanism for uploading
  data into NVS and returning data corrections and
  additions to datasets already stored in NVS
• An unrestrictive format to handle data collected
  using non-standard methods or miscellaneous
  associated data

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Future plans

• Complete new system
• Database loaded with historic data
• Standard data exchange format
• Analysis tools

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Goals for this workshop

• Draft vegetation schema is developed
• Ensure that our specific requirements fit into a
  schema that is usable for all
• Our effort is aligned with that of the larger
  vegetation science community

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What LCR can offer

• Experience in management and recording of
  individual tree data
• Users protocols, end-users
• New tools being developed
• TDWG/GBiF, TCS, LSID expertise

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• Funded by
• NZ Foundation for Research
• Science Technology - FRST
• NZ Department of Conservation -
• Terrestrial Freshwater Biodiversity Information
  System - TFBIS

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LCR requirements

• Snapshot/single dataset oriented schema
• Link to project and dataset level metadata
• Capture methods, units, constraints for data
• A format for transferring data between end-users
  and NVS
• A portable format that is easily read by humans,
  but also suitable for machine processing

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Design requirements (LCR)

• Meet best accepted approach for schema design and
  naming conventions
• Modular approach to enable flexibility and reuse
• Probably a plot centric view
• Developed as a standard export format
• A portable format that can be consumed by other
  tools
• Design that enables large scale data analysis
• Possibly a schema that can be used in either a
  simple or complex way

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Plot tables
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Method tables
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Relevé tables
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Individual tree tables