Balkan Vegetation Database (BVD) – updated information and current status

By

Vassilev, Kiril
Pedashenko, Hristo
Alexandrova, Alexandra
Tashev, Alexandar
Ganeva, Anna
Gavrilova, Anna
Macanović, Armin
Assenov, Assen
Vitkova, Antonina
Genova, Beloslava
Grigorov, Borislav
Gussev, Chavdar
Masic, Ermin
Filipova, Eva
Gecheva, Gana
Aneva, Ina
Knolova, Illona
Nikolov, Ivaylo
Georgiev, Georgi
Gogushev, Georgi
Tinchev, Georgi
Minkov, Ivan
Pachedzieva, Kalina
Mincheva, Katerina
Koev, Koycho
Lyubenova, Mariyana
Dimitrov, Marius
Gumus, Media
Nazarov, Momchil
Apostolova-Stoyanova, Nadezhda
Nikolov, Nikolay
Velev, Nikolay
Zhelev, Petar
Glogov, Plamen
Natcheva, Rayna
Tzonev, Rossen
Barudanović, Senka
Kostadinova, Sofia
Boch, Steffen
Hennekens, Stephan
Georgiev, Stoyan
Stoyanov, Stoyan
Karakiev, Todor
Ilić, Tijana
Kalníková, Veronika
Shivarov, Veselin
Vulchev, Vladimir

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2020-12-21

Original Publication

Vegetation classification and survey

Volume

1

Pages

151--153

Subjects

Balkan Peninsula , Balkan vegetation , Conservation , Turboveg , Vegetation classification , vegetation plot

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers 2020-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS/2020/61348

 

Abstract

The Balkan Vegetation Database (BVD; GIVD ID: EU-00-019) is a regional database, which was established in 2014. It comprises phytosociological relevés covering various vegetation types from nine countries of the Balkan Peninsula (Albania – 153 relevés, Bosnia and Herzegovina – 1715, Bulgaria – 12,282, Greece – 465, Croatia – 69, Kosovo – 493, Montenegro – 440, North Macedonia – 13 and Serbia – 2677). Currently, it contains 18,306 relevés (compared to 9.580 in 2016), and most of them (82.8%) are geo-referenced. The database includes both digitized relevés from the literature (65.6%) and unpublished data (34.5%). Plot size is available for 84.7% of all relevés. During the last four years some “header data information” was improved e.g. elevation (now available for 83.4% of all relevés), aspect (67.7%), slope (66%), total cover of vegetation (54.3%), cover of tree, shrub, herb, bryophyte and lichen layers (27.1%, 20.1%, 40.2%, 11.5% and 2.1%), respectively. Data access is either semi-restricted (65.6%) or restricted (34.4%). Most relevés (84.6%) are classified to syntaxa of different levels. The database has been used for numerous studies with various objectives from floristic, vegetation and habitat-related topics, to macroecological studies at the local, regional, national, continental and global levels. During the last four years, BVD data were requested from 111 different projects via the EVA and sPlot databases.