Database Report

SWEA-Dataveg -- Vegetation plots from East Africa and abroad

Miguel Alvarez

GIVD Database ID: AF-00-006	Last update: 2021-03-28
SWEA-Dataveg	Web address: https://kamapu.github.io/sweadataveg/
Database manager(s): Miguel Alvarez (kamapu78@gmail.com)
Owner: Miguel Alvarez (as custodian)
Scope: Relevés in small wetlands of Kenya and Tanzania collected during the sampling activities of the SWEA project, including semi-natural vegetation (non-used or light used fields), fallows, grasslands and weed communities in crops. Currently the GlobE wetlands project is continuing data collection with a similar scope as SWEA. Additional information from other projects and published relevés from East Africa are considered. Though this database is currently not freely available, a delivery for free use after end of GlobE wetlands project is considered.
Abstract: SWEA (agricultural use and vulnerability of small wetlands in East Africa) is a multidisciplinary project whose task is to evaluate the effects of land use on the ecological and socio-economical functions of small wetlands in Kenya and Tanzania. In order to allow the availability of the collected data for further studies we stored them into SWEA-Dataveg, a database performed in Microsoft Access (mdb-format). Because this project is dealing not only with vegetation science but also with geography, soil science, hydrology and socio-economy, the database also contains information related with these research fields. Additionally some functional traits of the plant species occurring in the relevés are included in the species list. The sampling areas are concentrated in four localities, two of them in Kenya (Karatina and Rumuruti) and two in Tanzania (Malinda and Lukozi). The vegetation ecology group is dealing in the project with the classification of the vegetation according with the species composition, the correlation of plant communities with environmental factors and land uses, and the survey of potential indicator species for the detriment on the resilience of wetlands. Once finished the storage we are considering an adaptation of SWEA-Dataveg into a Turboveg-format as well as its extension to further projects (e.g. SWEA phase II) and relevés collected from publications.
Availability: according to a specific agreement	Online upload: no	Online search: no
Database format(s): PostgreSQL	Export format(s): other, vegtable (R)
Plot type(s): normal plots	Plot-size range (m²): 0.5 to 10000
Non-overlapping plots: 5552	Estimate of existing plots: 10000	Completeness: 56%	Status: completed and continuing
Total no. of plot observations: 5552	Number of sources (biblioreferences, data collectors): 33	Valid taxa: 3403
Countries (%): KE: 58; TZ: 10; BJ: 1; CD: 10; ET: 4; RW: 3; TG: 3; UG: 9; ZM: 3
Formations:
Guilds: all vascular plants: 100%
Plot size categories (%): 1-10 m2: 17%; 10-100 m2: 9%; 100-1000 m2: 21%; 1000-10000 m2: 1%; unknowmn: 51%;
Environmental data (%):
Performance measure(s): presence/absence only: 1%; cover: 99%
Geographic localisation: point coordinates less precise than GPS, up to 1 km: 100%
Sampling periods: 1930-1939: 5%; 1940-1949: 2%; 1950-1959: 1%; 1960-1969: 1%; 1980-1989: 17%; 1990-1999: 14%; 2000-2009: 7%; 2010-2019: 26%; unknown: 27%
Information as of 2026-04-12; further details and future updates available from http://www.givd.info/ID/AF-00-006

Miguel Alvarez* (kamapu78@gmail.com)
Vegetation Ecology, INRES, University of Bonn, Nussallee 1, 53115 Bonn, GERMANY
* corresponding author