6.4 Data Synthesis and Analysis

After field work is complete, vegetation and environment data are tabulated and analyzed, and ecosystem units are finalized for the study area. Vegetation and environment data from full plots is computer coded in the VENUS (Vegetation and Environment NexUS) program (BC Ministry of Forests and BC Ministry of Environment, 1997). The ground inspection data needs to be entered into a set database format, or entered using the GRAVITI (Ground And Visual Inspection TEM Interface) data entry program (BC Ministry of Forests and BC Ministry of Environment, 1998b). Data from visual checks can be entered in a spreadsheet or database or using GRAVITI. Templates for data entry in an Excel spreadsheet or a dBase format database (dBase and Foxpro) that import into GRAVITI are available from the BC Ministry of Forests, Research Branch, in Victoria.

After data has been entered, tables summarizing vegetation or environment data may be required for classification or review purposes. VENUS will produce some basic tables for data from full plots, or more sophisticated (e.g., hierarchical) tables can be prepared by exporting the data to VTAB (Kayahara, 1992; Britton et al., 1995). Vegetation and environment summary tables should be produced for each ecosystem unit. Copies of the VENUS, VTAB, and GRAVITI data entry and analysis software are also available from the Ministry of Forests (see Appendix B).

Microsoft Windows-based VENUS is the standard for entering data for vegetation analysis. Other vegetation analysis programs, such as TWINSPAN and DECORANA (Hill, 1979a and b), ORDIFLEX (Gauch, 1977), CERO (Ceska and Roemer, 1971), SYNTAX (Podani, 1994), and PC ORD (McCune and Mefford, 1995), may also be used to analyze and summarize plot data, depending on the quantity of data and the objectives of the project.

[Back to TOC] [Previous] [Next]