EFFICIENCY OF GRID MAPPING METHOD FOR DETECTING NEW LOCATIONS OF RARE PLANTS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE SOUTHEASTERN PART OF OREL REGION)

Abstract

In Orel Region since 1999, work is being carried out to study floristic diversity using GIS technologies. One of thematic layers of the mapping database “Natural Resources of Orel Region”, created in the GIS MapInfo, is “Rare and Protected Plants of Orel Region”. This thematic layer contains point maps of 425 rare and protected plants in the region. In 2015, in the environment of the GIS MapInfo there was created a thematic layer “Flora of Orel Region”, containing grid maps of the distribution of 945 species of vascular plants in the southeastern part of the region.The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the grid mapping method to identify new locations of rare and protected plants by the example of the southeastern part of Orel Region.In 2015 the study of the flora of the 7 administrative districts of the southeastern part of Orel Region by the method of grid mapping resulted in identifying 77 new sites of 17 vascular plant species included in the Red Book of Orel Region, of which 24 new localities of 5 species included in the Red Book of the Russian Federation.For 9 species of the Red Book of Orel Region, the application of the grid mapping method allowed increasing significantly (from 60% to 100%) the number of locations in the southeast of the region.The conducted research has shown that the grid mapping method is most effective for revealing new locations of rare and protected plants.

Keywords

• Orel Region
• the MapInfo GIS
• rare and protected plants
• point and net mapping