Vegetation
The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism,
on request by the National Botanical Institute and the
South African Association of Botanists, sponsored the
compilation of a new vegetation map for South Africa.
The work started in 1991 and culminated in the publication
of a full colour map and a companion booklet in 1995.
The booklet is now out of print. An electronic copy of
the booklet is available at on this site.
Delimination of vegetation types:
Teams of botanists delimited the different vegetation types
in the following way:
Each Vegetation Type had to be a coherent array of communities,
which shared common species (or abundances of species),
possessed a similar vegetation structure (vertical profile),
and shared the same set of ecological processes. They would
thus have similar uses, management programmes and conservation
requirements.
It was not possible to designate equivalent units between
the biomes. Each biome was therefore treated independently.
The teams were responsible for ensuring that the criteria
for determining vegetation types were uniformly applied
within each biome.
The boundaries of vegetation types on the map were drawn
by hand from geological, pedological, climatological, satellite
and other cartographic data known to be relevant to the
vegetation type. Mosaics and transition zones were not
included in the map, but, where these occur, they are mentioned
in the text.
The units mapped are the vegetation types which would
have occurred today, were it not for the major man-made
transformations. Cropland, dams, urban areas and other
transformations were ignored.
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