Vegetation Mapping

Vegetation is one of the most conspicuous and characteristic features of the landscape and has long been a convenient way to distinguish different regions; maps of ecosystems and biomes have been mainly vegetation maps. As pressure on the Earth’s natural resources grows and as natural ecosystems are increasingly disturbed, degraded, and in some cases replaced completely, the mapping of vegetation and ecosystems, at all scales and by various methods, has become more important.

Mapping has expanded to involve other aspects of vegetation and ecosystems as well as new methodologies for map production. Functional processes such as primary production, decomposition rates, and climatic correlates (such as evapotranspiration) have been estimated for enough sites so that world maps can be generated. Structural aspects of ecosystems, such as total standing biomass or estimated for enough sites so that world maps can be generated. Structural aspects of ecosystems, such as total standing biomass or potential litter accumulations, are also being estimated and mapped. Quantitative maps of these processes or accumulations can be analyzed geographically to provide first estimates of important aspects of world biogeochemical budgets and resource potentials.

Three approaches have arisen for mapping general vegetation patterns.

· Based on vegetation structure or gross physiognomy;
· Based on correlated environmental patterns; and,
· Based on important floristic taxa.

The environmental approach provides the least information about the actual vegetation but succeeds in covering regions where the vegetation is poorly understood. Most modern classification systems use a combination of physiognomic and floristic characters.

--Susan Keen