EUNIS heathland, scrub and tundra habitat types, distribution based on vegetation plot data - version 1, Nov. 2021

This metadata corresponds to the EUNIS heathland, scrub and tundra habitat types, distribution based on vegetation plot data dataset.

These habitat types correspond to non-coastal land which is dry or only seasonally inundated (with the water table at or above ground level for less than half of the year) with greater than 30% vegetation cover. Tundra is characterised by the presence of permafrost. Heathland and scrub are defined as vegetation dominated by shrubs or dwarf shrubs of species that typically do not exceed 5 m maximum height. Includes shrub orchards, vineyards, hedges (which may have occasional tall trees). Also includes stands of climatically-limited dwarf trees (krummholz) < 3 m high, such as occur in extreme alpine conditions. Includes Salix and Frangula carrs. Excludes coppice (T47) and Alnus and Populus swamp forest (T15).

The verified heathland, scrub and tundra habitat samples used are derived from the Braun-Blanquet database (http://www.sci.muni.cz/botany/vegsci/braun_blanquet.php?lang=en) which is a centralised database of vegetation plots and comprises copies of national and regional databases using a unified taxonomic reference database. The geographic extent of the distribution data are all European countries except Armenia and Azerbaijan. The dataset is provided both in Geodatabase and Geopackage formats.