Phase 2 Lowland Grassland Survey of Wales

Quality Control

Entire dataset has been extensively validated and verified. The main limitation of the data is their age - habitat composition may change over time due to successional trends, agricultural treatments or even planned developments. A record of a vegetation type in the digital data is, therefore, no guarantee that it is still extant on the ground.

Method steps

1. Surveys were conducted on all forms of semi-natural neutral, acidic and calcareous grassland in lowland Wales, as well as wetter Molinia (purple-moor grass) and Juncus (rush) pasture communities and associated soligenous mires. The data was captured in Recorder 6 to keep the data in a more stable environment to secure it for future use, to enable data analysis and to ease the data exchange process. Community definition follows the National Vegetation Classification (NVC). At each site, homogeneous stands of vegetation were identified, sampled with 2 x 2 m quadrats and mapped onto Ordnance Survey base maps or aerial photographs at 1:5000 scale.

This dataset has all Wales coverage with sites varying in size and complexity from small uniform hay-meadows of less than 1 ha to extensive wet-dry pasture systems covering over 100 ha.