Please note: The algorithm descriptions in English have been automatically translated. Errors may have been introduced in this process. For the original descriptions, go to the Dutch version of the Algorithm Register.
Vegetation algorithm (Iteratio 2)
- Publication category
- Impactful algorithms
- Impact assessment
- Field not filled in.
- Status
- In use
General information
Theme
Begin date
Contact information
Link to publication website
Link to source registration
Responsible use
Goal and impact
Vegetations on land and in water reflect a wide range of environmental conditions in the field. Knowledge of these is essential for effective nature conservation and restoration. Adjusting those terrain conditions, the non-living (abiotic) variables, creates the conditions in the terrains for valuable nature. A lot of measurement is therefore made of those site conditions. A monitoring well is a tube installed in the ground in which the groundwater level can be measured. Monitoring wells tell what the moisture condition of a terrain is, analyses of soil chemistry show how acidic, calcareous or nutrient-rich a soil is. These measurements require a lot of effort, are costly, and are also difficult to scale from measuring point to vegetation surface.
The aim of ITERATIO is to achieve better analysis of sites using the available data collected. The results should be usable by everyone from the best vegetation expert to the field officer, for policy and for research.
Currently, the results of the model are for internal use only and have no impact on citizens.
Considerations
It is a state-of-the art model to derive abiotic indicators from vegetations. It is not possible to actually measure abiotics on such a scale. It therefore provides an interesting complement to direct abiotic measurements.
Human intervention
There is no direct policy consequence of using ITERATIO. The results are presented to policy officers for information. It is a research tool. It does involve human intervention.
Risk management
The algorithm can potentially contain errors, so the results are not 100% reliable. However, given the development time and expertise of the developers, those errors are minimised as much as possible.
Legal basis
unknown
Operations
Data
vegetation map, vegetation typology, vegetation recordings, vegetation layers, species names (scientific and Dutch) and weight
Technical design
ITERATIO is a computer programme that performs calculations to create terrain condition maps (abiotic value maps).
Initially, the terrain condition to be analysed is chosen. Then, vegetation recordings are read into ITERATIO for analysis. An indicator value is attached to some of the occurring species. A series of iterative calculations produces an indicator value for all species, and an average value for the terrain condition for all recordings. The different vegetation types are usually underpinned by a number of recordings.
In ITERATIO, each vegetation type has been assigned a value for terrain condition. These values are associated with each patch of the vegetation map and made visible through colours in the abiotic value map.
Apart from easily processing the mappings prepared according to the Digital Standard with ITERATIO 2, it also provides for the import of GeoPackage output from the National Database Vegetation and Habitats (NDVH). By linking to the NDVH, analysing large numbers of vegetation mappings with ITERATIO will start to structurally contribute to broadening and deepening our knowledge of natural sites for their conservation, management and restoration.