Database Report

GBNVPD -- The National Vegetation Plot Database of Great Britain

Zeke Marshall

GIVD Database ID: EU-GB-007	Last update: 2025-08-31
GBNVPD	Web address:
Database manager(s): Zeke Marshall (zekmar@ceh.ac.uk)
Owner: The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology manages the GBNVPD as part of a collaborative consortium of data contributors.
Scope: The GBNVPD contains vegetation plot data from Great Britain, the Isle of Man, the Bailiwick of Guernsey, and the Bailiwick of Jersey. At present only non-experimental plots are collected, otherwise all other vegetation plots are within the scope of the GBNVPD provided that there is confidence in the reliability of vascular plant identification.
Abstract: The GBNVPD (GIVD-code EU-GB-007) is the new centralised repository for the collection and storage of standardised vegetation plot data in Great Britain and the Crown Dependencies. The initial version of the GBNVPD (v1.0) described in this long database report comprises data from 63 individual sources and contains 277,070 samples from 200,733 plots, with a total of 4,463,300 occurrences of 4,086 accepted taxa (3,464 accepted species), surveyed between 1949 and 2024. Of the 63 constituent datasets 52 are newly submitted to the EVA and 9 to ReSurveyEurope. The database is available under a discretionary mixed- access regime and will be maintained and updated continuously in response to further digitisation of historic paper records, collection of pre-existing digitised survey data, and addition of future survey data.
Availability: according to a specific agreement	Online upload: no	Online search: no
Database format(s): other, DuckDB	Export format(s): Excel, CSV file, plain text file
Plot type(s): normal plots, nested plots, time series	Plot-size range (m²): 0.04 to 900
Non-overlapping plots: 200733	Estimate of existing plots: 200733	Completeness: 100%	Status: completed and continuing
Total no. of plot observations: 277070	Number of sources (biblioreferences, data collectors): 63	Valid taxa: 4086
Countries (%): GB: 100
Formations: Forest: 10% // Non Forest: 86%
Guilds: all vascular plants: 83%; bryophytes (terricolous or aquatic): 12%; lichens (terricolous or aquatic): 1%; non-terricolous taxa (epiphytic, saxicolous, lignicolous): 1%
Plot size categories (%): < 1 m2: 17.89%; 1-10 m2: 52.9%; 10-100 m2: 4.37%; 100-1000 m2: 5.7%; unknowmn: 19.14%;
Environmental data (%): altitude: 30.7; slope aspect: 37.7; slope inclination: 25.1; soil pH: 10.8
Performance measure(s): presence/absence only: 2.89%; cover: 92.6%; number of individuals: 4.41%; other: 0.10%
Geographic localisation: GPS coordinates (precision 25 m or less): 36.22%; point coordinates less precise than GPS, up to 1 km: 36.94%; small grid (not coarser than 10 km): 23.86%; political units or only on a coarser scale ( above 10 km): 2.99%
Sampling periods: 1940-1949: 0.04%; 1950-1959: 0.45%; 1960-1969: 2.05%; 1970-1979: 14.86%; 1980-1989: 5.73%; 1990-1999: 23.43%; 2000-2009: 17.19%; 2010-2019: 20.82%; after 2020: 6.18%; unknown: 9.24%
Information as of 2026-05-13; further details and future updates available from http://www.givd.info/ID/EU-GB-007

Zeke Marshall* (zekmar@ceh.ac.uk)
UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Library Avenue, LA1 4AP Bailrigg, Lancaster, UNITED KINGDOM
* corresponding author