Vegetation mapping

Knowledge of plant communities and their distribution is necessary today to respond to various issues. This knowledge, which notably meets the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity of Rio (1992), aims to better define the issues in terms of plant community and landscape conservation. It thus contributes to the definition of various public policies for the protection of natural heritage, carried out from the international to the regional level. These policies are based on knowledge of the diversity, distribution, frequency and state of conservation of plant communities and natural and semi-natural habitats, as well as the pressures they are undergoing. The need to establish a coherent, current and evolving cartography of natural and semi-natural vegetation over the whole territory has therefore emerged as a necessity: it is now necessary to gather, analyse, evaluate and aggregate existing knowledge and to complete it in order to have an inventory and a global cartography of natural and semi-natural habitats over an entire territory.