British National Vegetation Classification

For the U.S. National Vegetation Classification, see U.S. National Vegetation Classification.

The British National Vegetation Classification or NVC is a system of classifying natural habitat types in Great Britain according to the vegetation they contain.

A large scientific meeting of ecologists, botanists, and other related professionals in the United Kingdom resulted in the publication of a compendium of five books: British Plant Communities, edited by John S. Rodwell, which detail the incidence of plant species in twelve major habitat types in the British natural environment.[1] They are the first systematic and comprehensive account of the vegetation types of the country. They cover all natural, semi-natural and major artificial habitats in Great Britain (not Northern Ireland) and represent fifteen years of research by leading plant ecologists.

From the data collated from the books, commercial software products have been developed to help to classify vegetation identified into one of the many habitat types found in Great Britain – these include MATCH, TABLEFIT and MAVIS.[2][3]

  1. ^ Rodwell, John S., ed. (1998–2000). British Plant Communities. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521797160.
  2. ^ Goldberg, E, ed. (April 2001). "National Vegetation Classification – Ten years' experience using the woodland section" (PDF). JNCC. citing: Joint Nature Conservation Committee (Great Britain). Species Conservation Branch (1992). Trial of MATCH and TABLEFIT Computer Programs for Placing Survey Data Within the National Vegetation Classification. Issue 20 of Joint Nature Conservation Committee report (Report). Species Conservation Branch, UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee. ISSN 0963-8091.
  3. ^ "Modular Analysis of Vegetation Information System (MAVIS)". Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Retrieved 26 February 2016.